Doppelgangers
by Aizzec
Summary: A story told by one of the four hunters too his siblings' children. A group of four hunters, well two are, the other two were on there way to becoming hunters, try to make their way home only to be intercepted by a duty they didn't want. WARNING: Graphic imagery. A/N: My writing isn't perfect so there are some errors. Don't like, Don't read.
1. Act I: Chapter I

**Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth. Anything else mentioned or read in the fallowing is property of it's original owners.**

* * *

Twenty Six years after the 'Secret War of Deity's' as many have come to call it. In a large cottage with two stories and a basement in the middle of some woods in a uncharted location on remnant.

* * *

"Alright, that's enough you three. You lot need to get in bed, or else your mothers are going to kill me." A man with gray hair that has stark white highlights in it, his strong, handsome face was aged from years walking among the living.

A single ruby red eye stared at them, the other eye covered by a gray gauze, stared tiredly at three children, who were running around trying to catch one another, stopped at the the gravely voice of the old man and looked at him like they were waiting for him to tell a story.

After waiting for a minute they went back to running around. The first one, who is the oldest and female, has long gold hair that looked sun-kissed by Oum himself with big silver eyes and white skin that looked like she hadn't seen the sun for her seven or eight years on remnant. And much like her father a natural born leader. The second who was a young girl about five or six. _"I keep forgetting how old they are."_ She has blue eyes with green hair laced with blonde streaks and tips with two fluffy green wolf ears with the same pattern as her hair growing from her head, but the ears weren't her main feature.

It was, in fact, the fang sticking out from her mouth on the right side of her mouth from under her upper lip, this often led to cutting her lip a lot, it was recommended many times by other people to get braces for the young pup but she would stamp her little foot down and shout at them that, and I quote, "It's my life and I don't want braces!" The memory reminded the old man that she was rebellious, even at such a young age. _"Good thing the village her and her parents live in don't care if your faunus or human."_ The third was a boy the youngest coming around four... I think.. I don't care at this point, but his a absolute 'basket case' as most teenagers say these days or as I prefer, a boy genius. He wore half framed glasses, his hair was unlike his father's, who's hair is a bright aqua blue no matter how old he gets. _"Lucky bastard, my hair oddly enough turned gray instead of staying pale white."_ The old man grumbles in his thoughts of his brothers luck. _"I never was lucky to begin with..."_ The old man states to himself, shaking his head he looks back at the kids, manly the boy who has deep dark aqua blue hair and emerald eyes. He may get their ages wrong and forget how old they are, forget when their birth days are.

But one thing for each of them he will never forget is their names.

The oldest her name is, Xantha, ha, fitting for a leader, they all need to be brave... Yellow the color of courage in Vale.

The second oldest, Ivy, beautiful just like the plant... green like a lush forest lace with ashen roses.

The youngest, Indigo, like a deep shade of the sky... Blue like the peaceful ocean, when there isn't a hydra in it at least.

Shaking his heads at his two nieces and only nephew. "Alright, I'll tell you a story. If you get into your pajamas, brush your teeth and get in bed. I'll be waiting." Not even giving them a chance to respond to the quick confession, the old man started walking towards the stairs.

All three of the children charge up stairs cutting the old man of from walking up said stairs, shaking his head a again with a small smile on his aged and tired face and closing a single eye, before looking back up the stairs, resting his right hand on the railing of the lacquered red box and continuing his path.

After walking up the staircase, the old man turns right and passes two doors before stopping at the third door which had a small silver plate on it, it said, "Xantha, Ivy and Indigo." Shaking his head at the silver engraved plate, he grabs the gold knob, turns it and steps inside look at the room it had toys here and there felled with lots colors for the children and three beds lined up with bean bags, cushions, pillows and other comfy things. Sitting in the middle of the room in a kneeling position by tucking his legs under his lower body and resting his butt on the calves of his legs, and waits for his nephews.

Four minutes later the door behind him bursts open not even flinching at the sudden bang, or at the three gusts of wind that blow by him flicking his gray hair forward, he opens his remaining eye and looks at the kids waiting for him to take a sit in the middle of them before standing from his sitting position and walking forward and sitting down with the three children resting at his sides as he starts by taking a deep breath. "A long time ago, twenty six years to be exact, there were four hunters who just wanted to go home, but got side tracked by a secret war..."

Act I.

Chapter I, _Dreams_.

* * *

Three Days before the 'Fall of Beacon'.

Beacon Tower.

A group of four that were about to dragged into Ozpin and Salem's secret war. Ozpin intended to get four, two of which were still Beacon students, of the most power hunters he could find to fight in the secret war, they however turned Ozpin down to try and live their own lives. But due to the fact that they knew of the secret war. Ozpin was forced to have them locked up, they did not go as peacefully as he and other would have liked.

All four of the hunters fought back.

The Gold Armored Veteran Huntsman was the eldest and the second strongest. Through his strength and superior leadership that put General Ironwood's leadership to shame they escaped, whom was striking at the Atlas General with his 96inch/8'f great-sword, using his strength he was able to swing the oversized sword quicker then most with a weapon Similar to his, swinging and using his heavy weight caused by the 16 cm thick canine like chest plate, that was very durable and once again unlike most other armors out there, allowing him to swing even quicker then Qrow could with Harbinger.

The Blue Clothed First Year Huntsman-in-training was the third strongest of the four. With his expert computer skills he hacked Beacon's defense systems unlocking the security doors that were stopping them from leaving, all while defending him self and his siblings by making pot shots with his rifle for his loved ones and the broad sword for himself which was cleaving through the atlas trooper's armor like butter and injuring them but not killing them, he however had to let go of the laptop he carried around with him to protect himself the many hunters in the tower by using the extended form of his broad sword.

The Green Clothed Third Year Huntress-in-training was the forth strongest of the four. Her superior skills in speed and stealth made her the quickest knocking the ranged guards and hunters unconscious leaving three of the hunters unscathed from the gory battle that raged in Beacon's Tower.

The Gray Clothed Trigger wielder was the strongest of them all, although his was quick to rage, he struck down the deputy headmistress with a single blow. However missing a fatal blow due to having to dodge a strike from the headmaster and any other hunter in the tower of the 'Great Oz'.

Ozpin charged him and was struck in the head with the cold sheath of the Trigger wielder's sword, dazing Ozpin even with his Aura and most of his strength he was injured making his gaze blurry and fussy, the only thing Ozpin could feel was a warm sensation rolling down the side of his head which he knew even in his dazed state that it was blood. His own blood was rolling down the side of his head making him realize how powerful this seasoned hunter was. Ozpin was forced to watch as he cut down hunter after hunter staining the glass floor of the tower with their own blood making it wet and warm with fresh blood, the only one who scratched him was the schnee specialist, whose blade was caught by the now black scaled clawed hand that belonged to the Trigger wielder. His black sharp face terrified the specialist to no end, the fact she was watching him as he changed in to a unholy demon of death from a strike of crimson lightning struck down word cleaving off the offending arm of the schnee. She being shocked by such events fell forward leaving her open to impalement. However even an unholy creature knows when to spare a soul, the Triggered Hunter sheathed his blade of death with lightning speed in the scabbard grown from his scaly left arm, he gently layed her down to the blood socked glass while she was still encased in the shock of the lost feeling of her right limb, in her shocked gaze she looked at the black face of her butcher and the the emotionless black gaze he was giving her calmed her nerves and made her feel peace among-est the chaos after a few moments he layed her head down to the blood soaked glass floor staining her hair red from the crimson tide of blood, and the four of them left. Three uninjured one scratched, the hunter's in the tower? Dead nothing but mere corpses having their blood drained as they lay on the cold yet warm glass floor, Ozpin however could have sworn that he saw something happen to the defending hand of the Triggered Hunter, a white gleam coming from the hunter's hand. it looked almost like a gem, Ozpin shook his aching head. Which he regretted doing right after as the blow to his head had yet to completely recover making his head ach more then before.

Ozpin couldn't let them fall in to Salem's hands their to powerful as they are only going to continue to acquire more strength as that is how this world is outside walls.

Kill or be Killed. The strong survive, the weak die.

Ozpin must send out huntsmen and huntresses of all kinds to find them, that is what their names correct.

Hunters of both sexes, sizes and appearances, it's what their name is.

Ozpin must Hunt them down. Four of the strongest people on remnant, they stand far taller then the Maidens, however if they fall.

They will fall the longest of all.

* * *

Six months after the 'Argument' or 'Recruiting' gone horribly wrong and the 'Fall of Beacon'.

Somewhere between Vale and Mistral.

A small camp consisting of four sleeping bags, clothes, a couple back packs, a black and dust tan cloak.

The small camp seemed peaceful, that is if you didn't notice one of the sleeping bags, a deep lush green, russel-ling violently from it's occupant, having trouble finding the only escape from the real world.

Sleep that one way to escape the harsh, cruel world that is remnant.

Toss.

Turn.

 _Toss_.

 _Turn_.

The unzipped cover of the deep lush green sleeping bag flies open, revealing a luscious woman in nothing but luscious lush green bra and panties with a lush green woman's singlet, her frame slender and fragile body combined with her DD-36 breasts and no blemishes, other then her whip scars on her back, make any man or woman lust over her and want to gorge them self's in her luscious body, some even make a move only to see the three men backing her up, hip long spiky forest green hair with light healthy grass tips, messy from being in bed, that gives her the appearance of a beautiful forest goddess of pleasure that just got out of bed, in her tiered state she looks around the camp, spying three sleeping bags one being a deep gold, the second a nice aqua blue, the last a dull gray that she had noticed was empty, like most of the time, even in her tiered state from getting zero sleep with her green wolf ears she was able to listen and her the swinging and scrapping of metal on metal, she stood up groggily and walked in the general direction of the noise, completely uncaring she was in a camp of four with her being the sole female you think she would be more conscious of her choose in clothing, but the thing is they are siblings her being the only girl in the litter making her brothers very protective of her even when they know she can handle her self just fine, the luscious woman had found the noise and like every other night and evening when they made camp was her second eldest brother swinging his specially designed sword that glowed and shined in the pale moon light from the shattered moon up above. _"Their he is again for the past five months now, skipping out on sleep and training. Is that why Aizen's hair is white?"_

She muses in her head as she watched her brother, Aizen, fight a foe only he can see with his usual 'Cold Grace' as he had called it, to busy caught in her own thoughts she had not noticed that, Aizen had stopped his dance and was looking at her near naked form with a his usual glare. "You may want to put on some clothes if your going a for hike, Woman."

His cold yet somewhat warm voice pulled her from her thoughts and dazed state, him noticing her in near nothing was embarrassing but she toughed it out and kept her mother-like smile that she wears all the time, she however could not stop the rising heat in her face, she heard Aizen sigh, something he did often believe it or not, as he rubbed his forehead with his index and middle fingers. "I know your worried about me Aria, I am.. Grateful for your concern but I'm fine at the moment..." He spoke tiredly while he was going to look over at her and slowly stopped his words.

Aizen had noticed that Aria hadn't said a thing. Seeing this and hearing nothing, he walked over and noticed the goose bumps along her arms and body making the almost unnoticed-able hair that grows from her and his flesh rise to stave off the cold. Seeing this display he took of his warm gray trench coat and placed it over her shoulders, he looked around and saw a large bolder he cut he half earlier by accident and when he did slice the bolder in to a hard flat seat he just looked at it and 'anime' sweat-dropped while he was looking at it. "Com' on, somethings bothering you, lets sit down and talk about it." Aizen often speaks softly when something like this happens. He however is not the comforting type, but there is a saying he has, "Blind Tiger speakeasy." The saying being heavy on the 'speak' and 'easy' as one word.

Aizen takes his right arm and wraps it around Aria's upper-back and hugged her close to his body in a gesture of comfort as they both walk towards the halved bolder, Aizen rests 'Merciless' his high frequency katana in the lush green grass, and sat both Aria and himself on the bolder, or what was left of one anyways. "So, what's wrong." Being rather blunt on the first question as usual.

Aizen realized how he said that and made his white face cringe, closing the ruby that is his left eye however his expression was just the thing to make Aria laugh even in her sudden sadness. "Well, I had a _Dream_ -"

Aria couldn't finish because Aizen interrupted her by saying. "I regret asking already." Speaking his mind rather blandly and so quickly made her start to giggle.

Aria could no longer hold her laughter in, Aria bursts out laughing full-hardheartedly causing her shoulders too bounce as well as causing her breasts too bounce and swing in luscious ways that were eye catching even to a reserved man like Aizen. Face turning red quickly he inwardly beats him self to a bloody pulp for looking at her that one way in that moment. But you can not blame any man for looking as it is Aizen's instincts carved into him and many other from the dawn of time. Aizen clenches his hand in to fist and tightens the muscles in his jaw as well as taking . _"Fuck you instincts and you hormones! I will not think of her in such a way."_ Aizen clenches his hand into fists and strains the muscles in his face too keep a straight face, just to hold in the carnal beast inside _"Stop. rain them in don't let these... **D** **isgusting** emotions rule me."_ Aria noticed Aizen's balled up fists, however getting back on topic made her mood drop like a Nevermore getting shot down. "So, as I was saying I was having a _Dream_."

 _Dream Scape, other wise known as 'Limbo', as Aizen calls it, the plain where you see anything, your deepest desire or your worst nightmare, the past, the present or the future, where all is drained of life, left cold and empty as a husk._

 _Aria didn't know where she was or how she got there, where she was you ask._

 _A battle field, swords, hammers, axes, spears, rifles, bows all sorts of weapons littered the ground some impaled in the ground as a last effort to stand up and some laid right down, with their wielder next to some of them, body after body, Aria started running through the gray lifeless field praying that none of the bodes wore one of her brothers. "Artermus! Azure! Aizen! Where are you!"_

 _Aria started to scream and shout in to the endless field of death and blood. 'Please be alright you three, I don't know what to do with out you lot.'_

 _She kept charging through the remnants of war, before tripping over a body that just seemed to be in her way before she turned her body around so her back was facing the bloodied ground to look at the body that she fell over, only to scream, stand up and run to the body, one of the only things with life. "No! You can't be dead! You can't be dead!"_

 _The body was Artermus, staked through his sixteen cm gold canine armor and in to the ground by Titan and his hands gripping the blade in a hopeless death grip attempt to pull the blade so his aura could begin to heal him, Aria ran over and started to reef at the 96inch/8foot great-sword, after a few tugs the Titan was dislodged from Artermus's chest causing a scream of agony to ring from Art as his own pride and joy was ripped from his chest and slicing at his thick leather gloves but no through them Aria to her knees and pulled Artermus in to her lap as she watched shock as what ever was left of Artermus's Aura trying to regenerate the mortal wound, but he didn't have enough Aura in him anymore. "A-Artermus, w-what happened h-here!"_

 _Aria started too sob uncontrollably in too Art's bloody chest as she waited for a response, she didn't get one, this prompted her to look up and saw his once Cerulean eyes glassed over by a white haze, Aria started to shake Artermus in a attempt to wake him up, however no_ _ _response_ for seven minutes caused Aria to start screaming again and balling her eyes out. "Oh~ would you look at that!"_

 _Aria heard a mad man like voice sort of like a joker type voice, the sudden sound of a joker type voice made her look up still crying tears of pain and sorrow, she a Joker alright a jester even he was dressed in a Jester like outfit only it consisted of two colors that being a deep blue like purple and a pinkish purple in segments of four or two spots with white frills to add to that jester look he had a sock jester hat the two socks were on the side of th3e hat instead of the back it was like the rest of his suit in color and pattern with two white cotton balls hanging from both socks, his face is what was the strangest part of him, his skin was solid white with a big smooth chin and a all to long nose with gold eyes. "A lost little puppy! That's brilliant!" He shouts at her face before adopting a gangster and continue like a mad man. "Listen 'ere pup, if yous wants to escape this place yous need learn to be patient! which of course yous can dos... BUT-" The mad jester would have continue if a rifle wasn't jammed in his face.  
_

 _The mad jester was interrupted by a Aqua blue haired wolf faunus by jamming the barrel of his rifle in his face pushing his nose down and in to his chin. "Start talking or else I going to pierce that big nose of your's and I have half a mind to blow your fucking head off!"_

 _Aria looked and saw it was her third brother, Azure a half-Wolf-faunus like Aria but he has a tail instead of ears and it's Aqua Blue like the rest of his hair, jamming the barrel of Aqua Rune's At-leso 6.56 mm fire dust assault rifle mode in his face his long Aqua blue trench coat with it's black leather front and gold accents was ripped and bloody much like the rest of his clothes. "WHOA! whoa, whoa, whoa take it easy their big boy, if you snuff out my voice~, I can't tell you what's going on and where you are~."_

 _The jester saying this made Azure loosen his grip on Aqua Rune and backed up letting the jester's nose spring up but Azure kept pointing Aqua Rune at the jester, the jester flew down in to Aria field of view and looked at her and started to swing a scepter thing at his face, the scepter thing has a smaller verison of his head on it the handle was purple and had a white ball under at the bottom. "few~ Thought I was a goner for sure~."_

 _After he said that he sprung up from his spot and starting patting off any dust he may gotten on his clothes before snapping his head at them causing Azure to re-tighten his grip on Aqua Rune. "So! My name is Jester!" Jester proceeds to do a deep bow like a Jester, "And where we are is the Dream Scape or Limbo." Azure was about to ask what the Dream Scape is he however was interrupted by Jester. "If you listened too Aizen more you would already know what the Dream Scape is and more! He often rambles on about this place, digging up as much about it as he can despite not actually coming here! He has already devoted five months to it already! Isn't that amazing!"_

 _Azure looked at Aria then at Jester. "Wait if this a Dream then how come there's 'three' of us are here and Artermus's is dead." Azure states to the annoying bastard. "That's quite simple really, the Dream Scape is the in between of life and death you can see the past, the present, the future, your worst nightmare or your deepest desire, but Artermus over here is not dead as you three are no where in this plain of existence... YOUR IN BETWEEN THE BETWEEN! Isn't that something! If you look at Arty over here he's already healed from that nasty stunt." That statement caused Aria and Azure to look at Artermus.  
_

 _And true to his word Artermus's wound was completely sealed shut and his eyes were closed, seeing this gave both Aria and Azure contentment that their older brother wasn't dead, Aria started to shake Artermus causing eyes too open, albeit rather slowing and shuttering, showing that same beautiful Cerulean, Artermus looked around and spotting Azure and Aria as well as the gray sky first before looking down at himself and the first thing he noticed was the hole in his gold canine chest armor, seeing this caused Artermus to rise off of Aria's lap ,that he didn't noticed he was resting his head on in the first place, he quickly started to feel around his chest and the hole in his armor and noticed that when in he reached in his chest was bare in that one spot and cover with blood, he looked around and noticed Jester. "Can someone tell what the fuck is going on." Artermus couldn't help but curse as it was all to weird for him. "Well Arty! Aria here found you impaled by your own sword!" Saying that caused Artermus's eyes to widen, Jester then slams his hand on his face and continues with a exaggerated gasp, "Isn't that shocking! and as to where you are, you are in the Dream Scape! the plain for those that have died or are going to die, lucky for you three none of you are dead, your once again." Jester take a rather dramatic deep breathe before screaming out, "IN THE BETWEEN THAT'S BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH! And you three are in the between, where you wake up in a battle field that stretches on for all ETERNITY!"_

 _Jester screams out to the endless flat field and swings his arms out wide for dramatic effect, this made all three of them think one thing in-common. "If were here... Then, wheres Aizen?"_

 _That thought hung in the air and the Jester knew exactly what they are think about and questioning. "Your probably wondering, 'If were here then wheres Aizen,' easy. He's not ASLEEP! Your now wondering, 'What the hell does that have to do with any of this.' Again, easy, it's because your all linked and asleep, if someone else was within at-least 10 or less feet or less of you one of you and snoozing like a baby, they would be here right now!" He yells excitingly at them like a child with a sweet tooth in a candy store  
_

 _This new information gave them one question how do they wake up if they are already wake but are asleep at the same time. "Now there's just one problem about being here, in the Dream Scape, nothing can wake you up until the sun rises or the scraping of medal is near by, you could hear a gun shot and not even wake up! you could be raped and still you wouldn't wake up and you feel it all, two times then normal, your scenes are heightened here, that way you can hear the scraping medal of that thick shaft that makes women shutter~!, until the sun rises and color drains back in to this reality or the scarping of medal is heard as a sign of danger to this plain you will be trapped here until which ever happens first. WHAT A DOZY!" The three of them just look at the mad Jester like a crazy man. Which he is by the way.  
_

 _The three of them started to get worried, mostly Aria because if they were attack by anyone that had ill intentions that could easily kill Artermus and Azure and just have their ways with Aria, but seems like fate had other plains as they all heard the dull rasping of medal. "And he unknowingly saves the Day! GOOD JOB AIZEN! Now a Rift in time and space will rip open, just like the small top on a woman and it just rips open! And when that tear does rip open. Just let your young Spirits DRIVE YOU AND GO FOR IT!" The mad Jester encourages them to race towards a rift in time and space. His insane!  
_

 _And at that moment as soon as those word left Jester's mouth the tear in reality ripped open in a Gold aura they all looked at each other and charged to the rift has fast as possible, mid way to the rift they saw it was closing this prompted them to run faster pumping Aura in to their legs to increase their speed a little, when the three wanderers reached it Aria was the first to dive head first in to it by running straight in, Azure was second to go through by jumping through to the other side, Artermus was last just barely making it through as it was just a crack open wide enough for him to fit, when Art was close enough he jumped at it and rolled in using the momentum from his armor and greaves slipping through and scraping his armor on the rift leaving a bad burn mark on it and sending sparks every where, but Art was able to fit in to tight hole._

* * *

Reality, After escaping the _Dream Scape_ or _Limbo_.

Azure, Artermus and Aria woke up with a start all three of them doing something to check if they made it and they weren't dreaming, Azure did the cutest thing by pinching him self several times mainly pinching his nerves where it hurts the most whining several times he was sure he was in the land of the living, Artermus checked if he still had Titan as he had forgotten about the 96 inch/8'f great-sword and when he checked the sword which was indeed where he had left it and he checked his armor, no more hole through the chest but there was a burn mark on the left side under his arm this made him scratch his gold hair in confusion , questioning himself if that had always been there, before giving up on trying to dig through his memories looking for the answer, Aria checked if she still had her legs and she did still have her legs, what she actually did was poke her self in multi-able places checking encase nothing was more sensitive then it should be, she poked her legs, her arms, her stomach, her breasts which were as sensitive as usale and lastly her mound she was as always very sensitive, happy with their check ups the three of them went back to sleep, but Aria couldn't sleep and just ended up tossing and turning in her sleeping bag, eventually she gave up and stood up to go check on Aiz-

"Alright I get the story now, you can stop, Aria. But that's not much of a _Dream_." Aizen was calm about it, but at the start he wasn't listening much, until Aria tripped over a 'dead' Artermus and when she got to that part he started to radiate his electric red aura in absolute devastation, he was relived later when Jester revealed that the gold canine knight was alive, he however did start listening more intently when Jester showed up as he explained the _Dream Scape_ in full detail, Aizen whispered from here and there about being right and that he knew it with somethings that Jester told them while they were in there, but what dishearten her was the fact that that place may show the past, the present or the future, maybe one's deepest desire of any and everything or a grizzly nightmare of the deepest most unholy darkness that will make any seasoned hunter curl up in to a ball and unleash their emotions, Aria would have continued her thoughts but Aizen speaking dragged her out of her saddening thoughts. "What this 'Jester' said is true, I have been looking in to it since we ran in to... what was her name... Raven! That's her name and how she kept blabbing on about this _'Dream Scape'_ when we encountered her so called 'tribe, I have been digging through every library I can get in to without someone annoyingly calling the nearest policemen, bouncer or tough looking person they can see, all because of my attire!" Aizen shouts at Aria. But not directly at her more like the people around him which no one by the way. But it happens more then you think.

Aizen shouts out his quickly building temper and a stands up, walking four feet away and turning to face Aria who was confused at his actions, Aizen proceeds to stretch out his arms and yell with lots of pent up frustration. "What the hell is wrong with my attire! Can you see anything wrong, Woman." Aria looks over and checks his outfit or as he prefers attire, which it currently consists of a crimson vest that's risen at the sides above his hip-bones and very pointed at the front and back with a gap at the front running from the collar to the pointed bottom of the vest, the collar it's self is a high-collar that he has folded over, but the collar still barely reaches up to his chin and makes it to the top of his neck just under his jaw, unfolded it reaches up to his earlobes, Aria looks back at the rest of the vest and spies three belts running across from the right to the left and it looks like one belts missing as there is wide gap between the first belt and the second but over to where the belts all reach is three silver clips for each belt to hold the vest shut, underneath the vest is a solid black compression shirt with long sleeves that reach to his for arms and almost his wrists which are exposed but are usually covered by his trench coat which is still draped over her shoulders it's a long gray leather trench coat which reaches his shins. _'how he doesn't trip over it is a wonder, same goes for Azure and his coat reaches his ankles._ _'_ Anyway Aizen's coat has a high-collar like his vest and the vest's collar is usually folded over the trench coat's. The arms for the coat are long, reaching to his wrists and just a little further past the wrists which covers his exposed forearms, the wrists of the trench coat have silver zippers and the elbows and Shoulders have three bumped out rows on both sleeves and for gloves he wears black leather compression gloves that are skin tight and full fingered. now back to what he was wearing right now, which is his pants and boots. His pants are like his coat meaning their gray and made of leather. But like most type of leather pants, his have soft cotton on the inside to keep the leather from rubbing against his skin and giving him blisters, his leather pants are held up by a black leather belt with a silver clip that has some kind of design on them but it's hard to make from this distance, attached to his belt is two leather thigh pad with ammunition pouches on them for his katana 'Merciless' it doesn't double as a gun if that's what your wondering it uses the bullets to fire a rod at the solid hilt guard for more power, now the boots are interesting being expensive burnished knee-high black leather boots with two belts with silver buckles at the knees and a silver zipper going to the middle. Damn, his rocking some serious 70's or 80's goth.

Aizen stands there waiting for the honest answer from his beloved sister with twitching eyes, all Aria did was look at him with her special small smile that calms his mind, the smile made Aizen calm his nerves and mind, it is after all one of the things he hates most, losing control over himself, his arms slacken a little and his face returns to it's emotionless mask that he tries to wear everywhere he goes. "Well, you do look sinister with the whole 70's goth thing you have going on there."

Aria answers honestly making Aizen shake his head and caused one of his eyes to start twitching, head hung low and he sighs in much needed rest, now that she thought of it he looks extremely tired like he could collapse at any moment, her thoughts were cut short by Aizen once again. "Anyhow you should get back to bed."

Aizen looked at her and noticed she changed her sitting posture resting her right leg on her left, crossing her arms and leaning back a little and with pursed lips showing disagreement, Aizen knew exactly what that posture meant and there was no way he could talk her down, no matter how hard he tries, seeing this caused another exhausted sigh to leave his mouth. "Alright, _we_ go to bed, lets go."

Happy with herself Aria stood up and walked over to Aizen taking his hand and guiding both him and herself to their camp, half way there she noticed that Aizen was fall behind realizing that just hearing about sleeping was making him _fall_ asleep, shaking his hand caused his eyes to open and look at Aria face seeing the beautiful shine in her eyes and that motherly smile she had on almost every day made he himself smile causing him to remember what he has with these special three people, he also noticed that he was falling behind his very short sister, he dragged himself back up to her side and tried his best to not fall asleep mid walk and fell into a peaceful silence, except for the sounds of the nature around them and the heavy booted foot falls of a 7'f11 man and the crushing of leaves and grass under the naked feet of a 5'f4 tall woman, the walk was peaceful minus the occasional trip of Aizen because he can't see as well as his sister can, don't get any ideas he can alright but their under a thicket of trees, blocking most of the shattered moonlight, causing Aizen to stumble here and their kicking the occasional rock or branch.

After a lot of stumbling from Aizen and a oddly long walk, they were both back at the small camp they had been calling home for the past three days, now you may be wondering why were out here in the first place and no it's not some stupid 'Heroic' adventure or quest, no, after the Fall of Beacon, as they have been calling it, all types of aircraft travel had been stopped only emergency supple drops are allowed and since were wanted criminals for self defense we have to go on foot, but back on topic.

We don't have some grand mission, that will most likely cause more harm then good, our objective is to go back home. That's right, back to our little nameless village that all four of us have called home for as long as we can remember. We planned to go all the from point A to B, and it has been taking it's toll on us, often getting in to fights with low aura from rabid animals, rock slides, pit falls set by bandits then fight off said bandits or running into a small group of Hunters, which has almost gotten us killed several times. This is our journey across remnant.

* * *

"Alright you three, that's enough. You need to get some much needed rest, or none of you will be rested enough for the next chapter." The old man states to the three children as he closes the book he read the first part of the story from, that part being the Beacon's tower. " _Not reading from this thing again, too exaggerated..."_ Aizen made a mental note. "But, what happens next." Indigo asks the old man, the very curious child question is going to have to wait.

And that is exactly what he says. "Well, your just going to have to wait. After all good things come to those who wait." He says while looking over his right shoulder with his ruby red eye, before looking forward and walking out of the room and closing the door with him and walking to the first of the three doors he past one hour ago, reading the scratched silver name plate on the door as it read "Aizen." Aizen stares at his own name for a minute or two before shaking his head and walking into the room to rest and prepare for the fallowing day and night, as well as his next hunt.

Even after the twenty six years the Grimm or beasts, as Aizen had come to calling them in his aged life, have never stopped even when their 'Queen' is dead, 'cause after all.

You can't have Light without Darkness, two sides of the same coin in other words.


	2. Act I: Chapter II

**Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth. Anything else mentioned or read in the fallowing is property of it's original owners.  
**

* * *

Twenty Six years after the 'Secret War of Deities' as many have come to call it. At a large cottage with two stories and a basement in the middle of some woods in a uncharted location on remnant.

* * *

Aizen bursts through his front door to his cottage causing a loud and violent slam too resonate through the cottage, his new yet _very_ old torn black leather trench coat reached his shins, like his old one.

The black trench coat, old and very withered at the bottom of the coat with a high-collar around his neck unfolded, unlike his previous attire, was shorter then his old one it reached his earlobe instead of reaching his cheek bones.

Dark leather shoulder pads adorned his shoulder that reach from his back and over his shoulders and a small portion of his upper back, black bland trousers covered his legs held up by a black leather belt with a dark dull steel buckle that had lost it's shine over the years, a Black leather vest covered his chest with multi-able dark dull steel buckles to hold the vest shut, seven belts in total on front of the vest, underneath the vest is a cotton white dress shirt that was a darker shade then most whites, the color is called gray obviously.

Black leather full-fingered gloves that reach the middle of his forearms, covered by dark dull scratched steel that, just like all the other steel on his person, had lost it's shine from ages of use and abuse against the ever present Grimm, the plates on the gloves were held on by leather buckles, knee-high black leather boots covered his feet, the top of the boots were folded over in design so they wouldn't ground into the back of his knees. However the one of most intriguing parts of his attire was the tricorn hat on his head, it's black leather like most of his attire, the mid point was more sharper and shaped, which was in between the two back parts and the sides were folded over into the hat to stop air resistance, the back of the hat is unfolded, the two back parts were torn and shredded like his coat, another standing out part of the attire is the old dark crimson scarf that was loosely draped around his neck, again like most of his attire, the scarf is torn and ripped but slightly brown from getting thrown in the mud from flying of Aizen's shoulders, he has tried too many times to remove the stains but they are very adamant on staying there.

He walks in to his cottage leaving mud on the lacquered red box floor, making note to clean that in a minute as soon as he takes a shower to clean off the mud and blood from bandits that attacked him. Thankfully 'Grimm Nectar', a new growth in the Grimm after Salem was killed the Grimm 'evolved' in a way, now carrying a type of blood and are much more resilient then before, would evaporate after thirty minutes, which was twenty six minutes ago so in four minutes the black stains would just disappear. It's as if Salem was holding them back from something, maybe from over throwing her? Well, we'll never know now that she is dead and gone for all eternity. _"At least I hope she is."_ Aizen sighs at his rambling thoughts of a bygone era, one where Salem was still alive.

Aizen continues walking forward through his cottage, knowing exactly where everything is, he takes off his, somehow, clean hat and puts it on the near by hat rack that he walks by every time he enters the cottage and proceeds to go down to the basement where the washer is.

He swings open the basement door and trudges down the now concrete staircase instead of a oak wood one. Reaching the bottom of the steps he proceeded to take off his clothes, starting with the trench coat and working his way from there.

After effectively taking off his attire and stuffing it into the machine he adds washing liquid that Aria always brings over every time she visits him, quickly setting it to heavy duty like always, Aizen lets the washing machine work it's annoying magic. Aizen then proceeds to walk over to a shower he and Artermus had built together, so when he got back from a hunt he could wash his clothes and wash himself at the same time. Stepping into the shower he turns on the cold to cool himself off a little, after taking a ten minute shower he steps out and drys himself off with a towel Nora had nit for him, surprising? I know, the towel is gray in color but had boop stitched into it in bright pink, Aizen wasn't a fan for bright colors like the others, but when he was back in beacon, before everything fell to bits and he was student, he wore bright shades of red and white. Aizen appreciated the gift, but enjoyed receiving the gift more then getting the actual thing inside the paper wrapping, shaking his head to remove those lingering thoughts, Aizen drys himself off and slips on the formal yet comfortable clothes, all of which are in black and gray, on and sits down on a sit with a book called, 'The Portrait of Markov.' A really interesting read actually, interesting enough at least for Aizen to have re-read it five times now, as Aizen was reading the washing machine was doing it's work and was almost finished, his lone eye darts up before the agitating beeping starts, he bookmarks the page his on and stands up to end the beeping before it starts, which it only got one out before he opened the machine and takes out his clothes and stuffs them in to a hamper, to make carrying them all the more easier, before he takes them out to dry on the line. _"No matter how many times they tell me, I'm not getting a dryer, not in a million years... too bloody noisy"_ He reminds himself why he's walking to a line outside the cottage in a backyard.

And also the kids he hadn't seen hide or hair of in the past four hours he had been awake after he got ready for his daily hunt in the morning. "Old man! What's this thing?" Ivy shouts rudely at Aizen, even though he has told them his name a million times Ivy and Xantha are adamant on calling him 'Old Man' even though his only forty eight. Hearing Ivy call him 'Old Man' made his right eye twitch.

Sighing and giving into the fact that he knows those two will never call him 'Uncle Aizen', Indigo however just calls him uncle instead of using the full term and name for Aizen as a uncle.

Aizen places the hamper of clean clothes in the green lush grass, and walks over to the three kids who had wormed their ways into his heart. When Aizen reaches them he sees Xantha pointing at a katana. His katana to be exact, he sighs again for the thirty seventh time that day. "Xantha, if you know your mother as much as you think you do, then you barely know her life as a huntress." After saying this Xantha pouts in his general direction, but she doesn't do anything, as she hardly knows her mother's life as a huntress. "Your mother, despite the problems we had for each other, she told me that this sword deserves a memorial, hence the shrine we are under." Aizen explains to the three children as they all look up at the tree and notice the rope and blue tassels hanging off it.

Before the children can ask him why he starts talking again. "Ruby, your mother Xantha, is a... 'Gun nut' and because I was able to strike down one of the ten 'Ancient Grimm', which she thought was an achievement on it's own, I however did not think striking down the beast was a matter of importance." Aizen explains as he walks over to the old katana and picks it up off the pedestal it was resting on feeling an all too familer rush of power rushed through Aizen as soon as his hand touched the old weapon. "However, striking that beast is what shattered the blade." Aizen pulls out the blade of his katana and sees the halved blade underneath that once shined with a crimson light but now a dull white, feeling the same adrenaline from holding the blade, even when it was broken, made his still young heart rush, his exterior may have aged, but the interior is still the same as when he was twenty two. "And that's the story behind this katana."

Aizen sheathes the broken blade and puts the blade back to rest by placing it on it's stand underneath the tree he immediately noticed the adrenaline that he hears from his heart slowly stop racing before he walks off to hang out his laundry which wasn't to far from the kids and starts to hang out his hunting attire. "Does it have a name, Uncle?"

Indigo asks his forty eight year old uncle who stops when he was about to hang up his old tattered scarf, he stops and looks at the old scarf Jaune and Nora had nit him twenty five years ago, he rubs one of the darker spots before answering the children, who were looking at each other with concern for their uncle as they walk toward him. "Merciless, is the name of that katana." Aizen continues looking at the scarf that was and still is important to him even when he can hear the kids walking toward him, Aizen chuckles a empty chuckle. "It's been _twenty five years_ since I last said that name, so long I even forgot how to even pronounce it, sorry for worrying you three." Aizen explains his silence and his empty chuckle to them as he looks at them and they spy the smallest of smiles so small and unnoticeable they almost missed it. _"Ruby would have my head if she found out I forgot the name of my own weapon."_ Aizen tells himself as the three kids look around the backyard looking for anything else of interest, before they walked over to the shed. "Hey." Aizen calls the three kids who stop and look back at him. "Be careful in there, and don't touch anything." He warns them when they stopped and looked at him. "Okay, Old man we'll be careful." Xantha calls back to him so they know he can hear them, they turn back to the shed and continue walking towards it, hoping to see some cool stuff.

Aizen continues to hang up his hunting clothes, which was taking longer then usual, mostly because Aizen was too busy thinking about his friends and family, wondering how the new Beacon academy was going which has been dubbed 'Xalvador Academy' by Aizen, which was built fifty six kilometers north of beacon. All the hunters and 'Old Hunters' like Aizen, which is a title given to hunters that fought with Ozpin/Oscar against Salem, were able to recover as much information and other relics from Beacon, things such as: Old books, weapons, information, books on Grimm anatomy, that are now out dated because of the sudden shift in Grimm evolution, but are still useful in a way. But most importantly.

Beacon's Relic, which Aizen himself went to collect from Beacon destroyed ruins and is hidden in his cottage in a gate way like heaven academy's relic, which almost costed him his left leg and right- "Hey! Old man, what's this thing!" Aizen train of ancient thoughts was interrupted by the high pitched shout, that would have made a faunus' ears bleed, called Aizen which, once again with the 'which' word, made him block his ears too keep them from bursting, Aizen finished hanging his clothes now that he wasn't distracting himself.

After he was done hanging his clothes out to dry, he calmly walks to the shed full of old stuff that most likely collected sixteen years worth of dust, stepping up to the open steel door and looking at the inside, looking inside the shed left him surprised as nothing seems to have collected dust. _"How odd..."_ Shaking his head at the low, almost zero, amount of dust in the old shed that he hadn't set foot in for over seventeen years, stepping through the corrugated iron door way and walking to where Ivy had screamed his 'title' at him from inside the shed. "Old man! Where are you!" Hearing the young high pitched voice in the small and oddly echoing shed made Aizen wince in pain as his sensitive ears ringed from the loud noise.

Walking a little ways forward before turning left and walking some more, Aizen saw his two nieces and single nephew looking- no, staring at a display case of what appeared to be gold armor-

Wait.

Gold armor, Aizen doesn't wear armor, except for the gauntlets on his attire, walking forward even more and due to his unfocused state at watching the armor, almost as if it had grown a pair of heads, kicked a convenient steel bucket. Startling the children, causing Ivy and Indigo to scream in fear making Aizen plug his ears to stop or at least muffle the high pitched scream that would make any man or woman cringe, however Aizen just plugged his and waited.

After a full two minutes of screaming and ear plugging, Indigo and Ivy finally stopped screaming and Aizen relived his ears of their blockage waiting a few extra seconds before saying anything, after those seconds passed Aizen spoke. "Now... You called for me." Aizen spoke tiredly at the children, instead of saying anything Xantha, Ivy and Indigo pointed at the gold armor resting in the display case, making Aizen once again look at the armor in puzzlement...

 _"Why's Arermus armor here, I don't remember placing a display case in this shed. And if I even did, I would have placed the case with the gold canine armor in my house..."_ Aizen only stared at the gold canine armor more and more, digging through his ancient memories as to how the armor got here. "Old Man, you said that you didn't wear armor. Well at least armor like this, right?" Xantha was the one who brought Aizen from is world of thought with the very question he was asking himself. "Well... I don't wear this much armor and not in gold anyway, Xantha this is your father's armor, Art's armor. I don't know how long it's been here, I didn't even know it was here. I'm going to have to move it inside the house now... It doesn't belong out here in this old workshop shed." Aizen spoke flatly to the children and then spoke more to himself then them at the last part, looking around the 'workshop shed' as Aizen had dubbed it, hearing the term 'workshop' the three children looked around and spotted a lot more stuff such as a maintenance bench for repairing armor, weapons and other meticulous details to inspect for other equipment, which was the most important bench out of the others so that was the only thing that stood out against all the miscellaneous. "Anyhow, I'll move this inside at a later date, but right now it must be late into the evening so we best be heading back inside the cottage." Aizen's gravely voice pulled the three youngsters from their thoughts. "But things were just getting good!" Ivy whines from her position the shed, looking her 'Old Man' with big anime eyes and beowolf tears. "Would you rather eat dinner and go too bed without a story, or walk inside and eat food willingly without further complaint and get a story... Or perhaps continue where we left of with my siblings and my adventures?" Aizen threatens casually at the children, making Ivy and Indigo's eyes turn into dinner plates. "Well, why didn't you say so Old Man, let's go before he changes his mind you two." Xantha states calmly and excitingly too Ivy and Indigo making them rush out of the shed and straight into the cottage, Aizen watches the two run off and out of the shed before turning is tired gaze too the young unofficial leader. "Your a lot like your father, Xantha a natural born leader... Don't ever think other wise, it is a _very_ rare trait to have... Too lead a group like it's second nature don't squander it." Aizen speaks gently but warningly to the child as it glares at her with aged fury, Xantha returns the glare with young fire. "Make your farther proud." Xantha looks at Aizen, breaking the staring contest with a questioning gaze. "I know you want to become a Huntress just like your mother and father, as well as your aunt and uncle..." Xantha's young mind instinctively widens her eyes at being caught. "I won't stop you Xantha..." Xantha breathes a sigh of relief, before she notices how he left two sentences hanging in the air. "Old Man, is there anything else you want to say... You never leave a sentence hanging in the air." Damn, she's smart for her age unlike her sister who's unfortunately not very smart, but Xantha's not any smarter then Indigo.

Aizen's eye glazes over with well hidden sadness, but he smiles a small loving father like smile, a memory suddenly forces it's way to the front of Xantha's mind as she looks at Aizen. _"Remember my little Topaz, people that usually hide there feelings and emotions care the most about others and care less about them selves, keep this in mind when dealing with your uncle Aizen, as that is his case anyway. Now get going, your mom isn't going to wait for ever."_ A memory of her father telling her what her uncle Aizen was like, seeing his face made Xantha rush in to Aizen's right leg, not budging the still seven foot eleven giant, this made Aizen go into shock from the sudden contact that he was not ready for.

Quickly collecting himself, Aizen pats little Xantha's head. "... Come on, let's go inside and I'll get dinner ready." Aizen picks the four foot six girl up and carries on her his right shoulder as he leaves the workshop shed, stepping outside in to the large backyard the sun was setting in the distance that made view-able by a run-way across the forest that he cleared in his youth so he could watch the sunset later in is life when he was eighty or more. "Wow..." Xantha gazes at the sunset in awe watching the sky turn orange, red and then finally purple, making a beautiful splash of color and life, Aizen looks in the direction he heard Xantha's voice come from as he noticed the sunset causing him too watch the sun set with his tired crimson eye, shaking his head and quickly forgetting the setting sun in continues walking towards the sliding door that leads into the cottage and outside to the wide open field that is Aizen's backyard, taking Xantha off his shoulder and placing her softly on the ground where they both stood once again staring at the setting sun, no matter how much the slowly dimming light hurts the three eyes, their gaze never broke from the natural beauty, well that is until they heard and some shouting coming from the cottage. "Hey! What's taking so long!" The muffled scream of Ivy broke them from their staring contest with the sun, Aizen's eye refocused from the shrieking voice of his niece, while Xantha blinked in rapid succession, her young mind processing what she heard and what's been happening before she looks at her uncle and smiles at him. "I've had a lot of fun today Old Man, thank you." Xantha said her thanks to her uncle before walking inside the cottage. However, Aizen just sighs at the gratitude from his niece and walks inside to cook dinner which was going to be mince with spaghetti, now that Aizen actually thought about it he was indeed hungry.

So for once he was looking forward to dinner.

* * *

After dinner.

Aizen and the three children were done with dinner, which was very good as he never did get many compliments on his cooking, however when he did have guests, or was cooking for more then just himself, he always cooks more then he should have, which has led him to where he is now. So he was currently packing away the leftovers for tomorrow and then he would have to tell his niblings more of his siblings and his adventures.

Finally stuffing the mince and spaghetti in the fridge, Aizen cleans the dishes afterwords, making sure they're spotless before setting them in the rack to his left where the wet dishes could dry in the morning sun and be used the fallowing day. Drying off his wet, wrinkled- from being in the water for to long, pale hands. Aizen proceeds too makes his way to the lacquered staircase that leads to the second floor of the cottage, where he could hear the laughter from the young children and the pounding of their little feet on the carpet as they ran around in the room playing some Oum forsaken children's game. Shaking his head in tiredness from the long day of hunting before making his way up the finely carved wood, making it half way up the staircase before stopping too admire the texture of the lacquered wood that took months to do. _"Took forever to make this_ _staircase..."_ Aizen thought wearily at the fine staircase, running his hand along the lacquered Red-box wood that was used to make it. _"But, it was worth it... Feels nice to run your hand along it."_ Aizen stroked the railing on the staircase, just to prove his point too no one, as he watched his hand run up and down the railing smoothly without any resistances, staring blackly at the fine wood before continuing his way up the rest of the staircase.

Reaching the top of the staircase and the hall way that would take him too his two nieces and his only nephew, stepping into the hall and turning right as he steps on to the second floor. Walking past two doors, Aizen makes his way too the third one which was his niblings' room where he could hear their laughter even clearer almost like their were in the hall way with him. Stepping up to the door and turning the silver engraved knob on the door, loosening the door from it's restraints and, due to his light grip, slowly swung open letting him peer inside the large room and gaze at the his niblings, pushing the door open the rest of the way causing the three children to completely stop in their tracks, oddly enough Aizen heard the rubber tires of a car screeching from trying to stop a one or two ton vehicle as he watched his niblings as a roll of sweat rolled down the childrens' heads.

Staring at the small children like deer caught in head lights, who were all piled on each other in a dog pile. Seeing this made Aizen's covered left eyebrow rise in question, although his eyebrow was covered you could still see the slight movement of his gray gauze, that covered his missing eye, inch up slightly. The three children rush too their feet as Aizen stood there in the door way like a statue, waiting patiently for them too scramble to their beds in a hurry to hear the next part of the story.

After a bit of stumble and tumble they were in their respective beds waiting eagerly too hear tale's of shock and awe, clearing his throat and taking a breath of clean forest oxygen as he could speak. "After the two head too rest in our respective sleeping bags...

* * *

Aizen's blood red eyes shot open and took in the thick canopy of leaves above his sleeping bag, after last night Aizen was mentally drained but physically, he could take on Salem and her goons by himself... At least he thinks could, siting up from his layed down position on the gray sleeping bag he looks around the camp in the middle, like most camps was a fire with stone rocks surrounding it. _"Like a wall protecting it's people from the dangers of the outside world, corralled like sheep..."_ Aizen frowns from his own thoughts as he stares at the hot coals that resemble the ignorant souls inside the wall, shaking more irritating thoughts from his mind he examined the camp more and realized that the Woman and his younger brother were missing except for the Chief, causing Aizen too look in his direction who was sitting on a flat stump he most likely cut with his sword and was polishing his titanium, gold spray-painted canine chest armor, completely distracted from reality.

From what Aizen could see the surface of the armor was burned- quite badly too, standing from his position on his gray sleeping bag caught Art's attention, the half-faunus -with no faunus trait mind you- looked in the direction of his younger brother and gave him his trademark expression which was; puckered lips, wide eyes and raised eyebrows. The look he normally gives them when surprised, or curious. "Ah! Your up, there's some breakfast on the hot plate over there." Art points at what, Aizen assumed, was rabbit meat and a halved green apple off to the side. "Thanks, where the hell is Azure and Bun." Walking over too the cooked rabbit and halved apple, Aizen sits on his knees in a kneeling position with his legs tucked under his ass and enjoys the plain yet sweet rabbit, tearing in too the dead and fried bastard that was a rabbit. _"Might have been a hair, it's a little to big too be a_ _rabbit."_ After tearing the thing to a sunder, Aizen stands. With a cooked bone in his mouth and with the once whole green apple, goes too sit with Art near the stump, as Art had resumed giving his armor a rub down and was talking with Aizen while he was at it. "Aria and Azure ducked into the woods to find some more fruit before we pack up and head out, I would have gone with her like most of the time but I needed to sharpen Titan's blade and polish my damn armor." Art explains too the young half breed -who has no faunus traits either- Aizen nods his head in confirmation. "Got ya."

Sitting in the grass with his legs stretched out in front of him, his left leg flat on the ground with his right pulled in slightly, his left hand on the ground and the apple in his right resting on his right knee. Taking a bite out of the sweet, teeth cleaning fruit Aizen couldn't help but hum at the beautiful peace he was granted for a few- "HEY! We're back!" And there the peace goes, damn it. "Hope you two were doing alright while we were out there grabbing goods for us too munch on the road!" Azure exclaims loudly scaring the birds that were resting on Art- who had finished getting the burn marks off- and Aizen, the loud ruckus eight feet from him caused him too sigh in discontent. "And there goes the few minutes of quiet I hoped too get." standing and continuing to eat the green apple that he had only taken one bite of. "Well no matter, the moment has passed, back too work." Art states, in response too Aizen's lament, as he stood from his stump. "So what did you two get." Aizen asks calmly as he and Art started to pack the camp, things such as; sleeping bags, the hot plate- which Art had cleaned- any extra clothes, foods they had on hand, etc. "Well, we found more apples, red and green, some black berries, some straw berries, caught three rabbits and filled all our water canteens. So were all set for a couple of days, but we need to eat the rabbits soon before they rot in the bag." Aria runs a full check list of what the gathered, hearing this made Art nod, content with the results. "Perfect, you to have done damn good, we'll make camp again after the sun sets behind the mountains. We'll cook up those rabbits and sleep with happy stomachs!" Art proclaims too the team of rag-tag Hunters, hearing that they would be eating the rabbits later caused Aria too start drooling. Realizing she was drooling she quickly sucked some it back into her mouth and wiped away the remains of the slimy substance and refocus on helping them pack the camp up so they wouldn't be delayed any longer.

With all four hunters working on the camp it only took them twelve minutes to back said camp and another five too make sure they had everything, after the supply check the team were ready to start moving on with their objective to go home. Back to there small village of forty people.

* * *

Artermus Azul checked behind him too check on his siblings, Aizen was at the far back in his grey 'attire' as he insisted on calling it, however this time he had a torn and ruined dust tan cloak on with his head down, obscuring his face from view, the only thing you can see is his neck. Despite him looking at the ground Art could tell he was watching their surroundings and their backs, even with the cloak in the way Art could also tell he was holding Merciless' sheath grip in his left hand and his right holding the cloak shut at his chest, so should the need arise he can throw the, tattered, dust tan cloak at a moments notice.

Aria was just a bit in front of Aizen in her dark, almost black, green outfit which -Art was going describe for no reason what so ever- consisted of a dust infused -like all of their clothes- long sleeved dark green shirt that hugged her arms perfectly but was slacked around her torso for more nimble movement, covering her legs is a loose pair of black cargo pants held up by a leather belt, the cargo pants were tucked into knee high woman's combat boots, which Aizen had gotten for her rather then she keep wearing platformers that, as he had said when they were getting supplies. _"Those bloody shoes of your won't last a week on the dirt roads of Anima."_ And Art and Azure agreed with him and true too Aizen's word the shoes only lasted a total of _three_ days on the harsh dirt roads, now the shoes could still be worn but the grip on the soles of the shoes had been worn down to nothing. Due to the soles wearing down to nothing Aria slipped on a _lot_ of surfaces such as; muddy roads, smooth stone floors and lacquered wood floors.

The leather boots themselves were very well made, and infused with dust, the boots reached her knees and folded at the knees- if the boots weren't folded at the knees they would cover her knees, they have seven buckles that run along the boots horizontally from the knees too her shins on the front of the boots, on the toes of the boots were green steel plates that Art attached to them, the boots were a black leather with a very slight purple tint. Aria also wear's a black leather coat that reaches the middle of her thighs and, like her boots, has a very slight purple tint. The coat didn't have many features like most of her clothes but the main feature it had was a rose vine running from the right front side of the coat to the middle back in solid silver the coat could only be closed by three buckles at the stomach of the coat, it also has long sleeves to keep her arms warm.

On top of her cargo pants is a dark green, almost black, skirt that reaches the middle of her thighs, like her coat. Both sides of the skirt are slit from the middle of the skirt for more mobility. The last piece of Aria's outfit is not clothes but rather a dark green DR-500 titanium breast plate with silver trimming, it rests on top of her shirt and under her coat also under her coat is armor platting of the same kind running down her left arm.

Around her neck is a headband with a steel plate attached, etched into the front of the neckbands steel plate is her emblem, her emblem is the right side of a wolf's head howling. The etched metal is filled in with forest green paint highlighting the wolf, Aria has a face mask to cover her lower face and a black cloak that is not in tatters like Aizen's.

Aria's hair, when not in a mess, is lush forest green with light healthy grass tips, her hair is hip length and very spiky with multiple long bangs covering her face, but she keeps it parted a little over her right eye, her eyes themselves are much like Art's own cerulean but her's have a green tint to them making them appear toxic cyan.

However after a lot of warning from the chief, Aria has started tying her hair up so it has a less change of getting; grabbed, snagged, or cut.

That about sums up what shes wearing and looks like, but her weapons is a more pressing matter and more interesting. Niriss, Her weapon consist of a silver thirty five inch straight-blade-katana with a leather forest green hilt and a ebony circular hilt guard, the blade is segmented so it can collapse in to the hilt for convenience and can mechashift into a 'Mistral Javelin'.

Running along the back of the blade is a segmented rifle barrel to fire a .22 Hornet round at her enemy from a distances, to chamber round after round Aria gave it a lever at the hilt, Aria two hands Niriss allowing her to push and pull the lever with her right hand and pull the trigger too fire, how the gun is loaded is by a six cm clip that holds five rounds, the clip is 2.5 cm wide to fit the rounds into the clip, the clip or magazine is loaded into the gun by the base of the blade which is the round receiver of the gun, the blade along with the gun barrel collapses into the gun receiver for compact carrying.

Aria had based Niriss loosely off Aizen's Merciless as she uses the recoil from the rifle to swing her blade, but she makes sure the barrel of the gun is facing the ground or facing the air as to avoid friendly fire, unlike one of her classmates back at Beacon who used the recoil from the 50. DMG in her scythe recklessly almost shooting some of her classmates in combat class and people when they fought in the street to clear out the Grimm when the train burst out of the ground, but the surprising thing is; no one cared about it!

Shaking his head at what Aria had told Art a while back when her and Azure were still in Beacon, Azure didn't even get one year in Beacon only six months, poor pup.

* * *

Speaking of Azure the Half-Faunus wolf was walking on the left of Aria in his Aqua overhauls, which consisted of a aqua blue leather trench coat which reached his ankles, the front of the aqua trench coat is black leather, the bottom of the black leather is pointed, with a gold zipper and the collar is a black leather high collar with two buckles to close the collar, under the trench coat is a black, short-sleeved, loose shirt with two white lines running down the short sleeves, from the shoulders to the edge of the sleeves. On top of the trench coat is a black leather shoulder holster with a black leather broad sword sheath attached to the holster, the holster in question is a slip on with two leather straps for both arms to slip through and a gold buckle to cross over his chest and hold it secured against his frame and a solid strap runs across his back where the sheath is firmly secured on his back. covering his legs is a pair of black combat pants held up by a black leather belt with a gold buckles hidden under the trench coat, the combat pants, like his shirt, have two white lines running down the outer sides of the leggings.

On the thighs of his combat pants are black leather pads with four ammo pouches respectively for both thigh pads, the four ammo pouches carry one magazine each for Azure's weapon.

The combat pants are loose around the joints of his legs allowing for unhindered movement and are tucked into a pair of calve high combat boots with two black leather buckles at the tops of the boots so they won't unexpectedly fly of his feet and hit someone in the face. Covering Azure's hands are a pair of black leather full-fingered combat gloves that reach half way up his forearms, the gloves, like his boots, have two leather buckles on the brace of the gloves to hold them shut and keep any unwanted materials from flying into the gloves.

Azure's hair is a different story. It's quite spiky, much like his sisters, but not as spiky as her's. His hair just barely reaches his shoulder blades, due too Azure's long hair he has too tie it, but and Art quotes."It feels like my scalp's getting ripped from my skull!" So instead of tying all his hair he gathers up the front bangs of his hair and brushes it over his scalp in a sweep back and ties it leaving the back and sides of his hair out sway in the wing or thrash in the heat of battle. The color of Azure's hair is strange indeed, what with it being aqua blue rather then green or gold like Aria and Art's hair, the color of Azure's hair in question is aqua blue with toxic cyan tips and highlights.

Like his two siblings Azure's eyes are cerulean, or rather a deeper shade of it making it a Azure blue.

Art, like Aria, is confused as too how Azure has yet to trip and stumble from the length of the two coat tails hanging from his trench coat. Shaking his head in confused meant, Art suddenly started thinking of Azure's weapon, or more precisely 'Aqua Rune'.

The mechashift broad sword was, obviously, aqua blue like that of his coat. The hilt guard and hilt it's self is aqua blue, the hilt is wing like in design with a sapphire gem in the middle of the hilt guard and visible from both sides of the hilt guard. The blade is segmented so it can extend from the five inch wide and thirty inch long blade into that of a forty inch long sword for two-handed combat. the flat side or fuller of the sword is black with the sharp bladed sides a silver. Black bandage wrapping covers the grip for comfort, the black bandaging is quite long, leaving two long strips to flow in the wind or crack like a whip in the heat of a combat.

The Rifle of Aqua Rune is much like the sword form, in terms of color anyway. The assault rifle in question is a customized variant of a Atleso 6.56mm rifle designed for semi-fire, full-auto and burst-fire. The Assault rifle form of Aqua Rune can be used for long and medium range fire-fights, the stock of the rfile is, somehow, fold-able for whatever reason, if needed Azure can attach a scope, a LED recon sighting or a laser sight, he hardly uses them since is a pretty good shot.

Art finishes examining Azure's weapons, clothing and other things. Art did a little bit of thinking with how that would have sounded if spoken out loud.

In the end Art couldn't help but look at himself and examine himself.

* * *

Art's hair is... Gold? Oddly enough, despite them all being related they have different color genetics, Aizen, by the looks of it, is the most different from the lot what with his ruby red eyes and white hair. Although, Aizen may have gotten his eyes from Uncle Madara, who's eyes are naturally crimson red. Which may also explain his white hair, which Aizen most likely got from their grandfather, but his hair is silver and spiky like Aria's, not stark white.

Art ran his thick leather glove through his short, gold, unkempt hair, which brushes and sweeps the left side back while the right side just falls down naturally. Art's hair reaches the middle of his nape the left side is swept back and the right just falls down.

His armor and clothes? Well that's where things may get weird in some way.

The main piece of the gold colored armor is the chest piece, it's made out of titanium and gold in color with a teal strip going down, or up, the left side of the chest armor. The design of the armor is... Interesting, if not, strange then. The design is similar to a wolf's rib cage minus the skeletal pattern of ribs, the shape of the front is push out and narrow like a canine rib cage, the back of the armor is hunched in a way for unknown reasons, due to the shape of the armor it's 16cms thick. Getting shot by a 50. DMG rifle without Aura, with this armor on will guarantee; bruises and broken ribs with continued fire. The armor shape at the front is like plating on plating with the upper front side wide and oriental, the lower front side narrow's down into a sharp point, pointing downward at the ground.

The armor has Vlatin writing all over it via engravings, if you can read the Vlatin engravings, one writing above his left pec, on a 180 degree angle, reads out. _'𐌀𐌓𐌕𐌄𐌓𐌌𐌉𐌔'_ , despite Vlatin being a ancient form of writing and language many can read and understand it by default for unknown reasons.

Under the massive chest armor is a brown leather trench coat that reaches his knees and looks like it had seen better days as the left coat tail is torn and barely reaches the stop of his knee the right sleeve is flayed at the cuffs making it look like he threw his hand in to a shredder. The collar of the coat is smooth and short only reaching his nape at the back and the front slides into the coat making it impossible to shut it at the neck, the coat can be zipped shut with a silver zipper, the sleeves, or what remains of the right sleeve, have button clasps with steel silver buttons to tighten the sleeves and stop air resistance a little, the coat has gold designs running down the front of the coat on the right chest side.

Covering his legs are a pair of black cargo pants, while basic in design they are quite tough, being able to stop a knife stab, his pants are held up by a leather belt with a logo buckle with his emblem on it, we'll get to that in a bit. Running don't the outside sides of the pants legs are gold lines.

However covering his pants are a pair of brown leather chaps with gold titanium tassets hanging from the belt of the chaps for protection and reach down to his knees.

His boots, the exact same boots that his had for seven years, are brown knee-high leather boots with silver zippers to zip them tight and shut, there aren't any fancies details on the boots but they have gold titanium shin guards, guard on the top of the boots feet and knee guards. All the plats on his boots are held on with belts.

Covering his hand are a pair of thick brown leather gloves with titanium plating running over them, the finger plates were the hardest part for Artermus to make as they needed to not restrict movement and grip resulting for Art to forge plate just over the proximal bones for the gloves.

Now for the giant great sword attached to Art's back, Titan.

Titan is a great sword with a blade length of eight feet or ninety six inches, one foot taller then Art himself, and that's not including the hilt. The grip is eleven inches, which actually makes Titan eight foot and nine inches, or one hundred and seven inches, the grip is also rapped in black leather. The pommel of the hilt is simple but does it's job well enough, it's shape is relative of a tear drop but looks similar to a fang. The cross-guard ornate and bends up in to a 'winged-guard' with flat tips in the guards are round.

The palette of the great sword is very different from the palette of his outfit. The main color of the great sword seems to black, the edge of the blade is silver and chipped in a few areas, fuller of the blade instead of it being a grove in the center of the blade it fills out like a bar of steel reinforcing the blade rather then making it lighter, but the fuller is black right to the point but leaves some of the edge silver at the point of blade. Making the fuller, or flat sides, of the blade, black. the hilt is all black with Vlatin in engravings all over the sword such as: _'_ _𐌕𐌉𐌕𐌀𐌍','𐌋𐌏𐌖𐌄', '𐌃𐌄𐌀𐌕𐌇'._ Although one in particular stands, it reads out _'𐌗𐌀𐌍𐌕𐌇𐌀'_.

The only other function the great sword has is it can deploy a great shield from the blade.

Due to the size of the sword, Art had decided it would be a bad idea to have a scabbard. It would have been a pain in the ass to actually make the scabbard anyway, it was hard enough making the sword. It's as Art has said multiple times, is it's a classic.

* * *

After giving himself and pointless run down of his own appearance for unknown reasons, Art looked ahead and noticed how the sun a gotten pretty low- no almost gone in fact if it wasn't for the ember lighting of the Anima forests. _"That was quick, the sun, from what Azure had said earlier, shouldn't be that low for at least three, maybe four and a half hours, should it? I should ask Azure."_ After noticing the strange position of the sun, Art suddenly felt like someone was watching- no someones there. Looking over his shoulder at his siblings he could see Aria could feel it too, Azure was looking around at the environment trying to figure out what happened to the time, Aizen was reading a book that he had been glued to for the past four weeks, Art slowed his pace so Aria and Azure were standing closer to him, Azure started the conversation. "Somethings wrong Art, the sun shouldn't be that low already. We should have had at least another two an' half hours left before it gets even behind the hills. But not that low!?" Azure started rambling about how time works, how fast Remnant turns, and the elevation of the area their in.

While Azure was off with the Grimm, Art turned to Aria, who was starting to sweat from either: The sensation of them being watched, or how much clothing she's wearing. "You can feel it too." Art stated rather then asked, Aria just nodded while she scanned though the surrounding brush with her faunus eyes.

* * *

In the back was Aizen, blissfully reading a story of a man with two souls, but was cut from his book by his own -chaotic- thoughts. _"Why the hell am I reading this? I met the man with two souls. Ozpin himself- my headmaster while I was at Beacon_... _A man who was forced to take multiple lives by force. After the Fall of Beacon, I wounder who's next? It's truly unfair for Ozpin and whoever's the-_ Aizen however can't finish the thought as he suddenly feels the weight of Remnant change. _"What the!?-_ Was all Aizen could think before everything went black as the Ace's Spades.

* * *

Walking ahead of the Trigger-Welder was his siblings, who had heard the sound of a weapon and book being dropped along with the sound of rope tightening and slinging something as well. The three Rag-tag hunters looked back and saw Aizen hanging by his right leg, unconscious with Merciless, his cloak and his book on the ground. the three immediately run to Aizen, who's are arms, left leg and any other thing on him that obey, Remnant's, gravity are dangling from being upside down. "Shit! What hell happened!?" Azure was the first to reach Aizen and immediately started looking for a way to get him down from the thirty foot tree, while Azure was looking for a way get Aizen down without injuring him any further in his unconscious state, Art was looking for what cause his unconscious state Art looked at the ground and saw Merciless, Aizen's cloak and his book, but those aren't what he was looking at, what he was looking at was a decently sized rock, perfect for getting knocked unconscious on, Art pulled Titan from the magnetic plate on his back making a strained vibrating noise, Aria looked at Art in confusion and she got one answer. "We're not alone." Aria quickly ripped her cloak from her body and pulled Niriss from behind her lower back and extended it. Azure notices that his two siblings pulled out their trademark weapons, He fallowed through with them by pulling Aqua Rune from it's scabbard on his back, and gripping the pommel with his left hand and pulling and twisting the lower causing one half of the blade to shot out in to it's long sword form.

And they waited for something to happen...

The Forests of Anima were filled with a eerie silence falling on the team of Rag-tag hunters. Azure had taken up position on the front side of Aizen. So Aizen, in his upside-down -unconscious- state was facing Azure's back, Azure had switched Aqua Rune to it's Atleso rifle form as per Art's orders.

Aria was standing on Art's right with Niriss pulled up to her left shoulder with her body lowered to the ground and her legs wide apart, allowing for quick and fast movement, waiting for something- anything! To happen, Art was on Aria's left, Art was crouched down with he legs wide apart hunched forward with Titan resting along his upper back and holding the grip in a death grip, his left arm had no use with his fighting style, it was left limp and dangled like it was broken, he's head and eyes darted through the forest and across the brush looking for anyone or thing.

 _Russel._

The one little movement of the little bush sent everything into chaos.

Aria reacted to the bush quicker then when she almost got shot by bandit that onetime, Aria, Art and Azure watched the bush like it was going to spring legs, arms and charge them.

 ** _Russel._**

The thick Anima brush started going crazy for a two minutes. Before it all went quiet, Aria's hearing was sharper then Art and Azure's. Only she could her chuckles coming from the bushes but she knew better then to go after it like a stray dog, after all she didn't want a repeat of a training session _long_ ago with Art, Aria shivered at the memory. However she heard the clank of Art's heavy armor shifting as she looked at him and saw him facing the road she looked in the direction he was looking in and saw what he was looking at. Nine bandits, all wearing various colors but all had one color in common, **_RED_**. "Bandits of the Branwen tribe, Raven." Was all Art said, as his eyes narrowed down, Aria looked at Art. "Art... In the bushes on our right and left." Art looked at the bushes and noticed all the steel shining from the ember lighting. "I know, I could smell them. They reek of blood and alcohol." Azure could hear everything Art was saying, he wasn't that far anyway. "Azure take care of Aizen, keep ranged and avoid CQC, Aria your with me, handle any and all gunners you see. Shoot to injure, no one need's to die today." Azure and Aria nodded. "On my mark." The three of them tensed, as well as the bandits tensed ready to run head on to the battle. Art closed his eyes and took a deep breath, let it out and his eyes snapped open. "GO!" The bandits in the bushes charged out into the combat, Azure opened fire on the left side first shooting most of them in the legs and some of them in the shoulders, Art and Aria charged the group of bandits in front of them. "Art! Some of them don't have Aura!" Azure notified before Art ran off. Art ran forward before leaping into the sky and swinging Titan into a thrust sending him toward the ground like a missile, upon slamming into the ground Art left a thick dust cloud in his wake covering his form from the bandits in front of the dust, the bandits looked at the dust cloud. Art couldn't help but take pleasure in the rush of the fight.

Art had noticed a stump he had stabbed. _"Perfect."_ Ripping Titan from the earth of remnant, taking the stump with the blade and spun incredibly fast causing the dust to clear, back in his previous stance prior the fight had started, Art looked at them and and shouted at them, if one were paying attention to the shout they could her a howl in there as well, Art then bounded forward, reared Titan back and swung forward with all his strength and might, throwing the stump at the one of the nine bandits in front of him knocking him unconscious and maybe breaking a few ribs. The bandits looked at their friend and back at Art, one of them, a woman, looked just about ready to pass out as she realize who they were attacking. "T-th-the W-w-wo- She however could finish as the bandit near her grabbed. "The who! Who is this guy!?" The female bandit broke under pressure and scream out who it was. "The 'Wolf Knight'!" The other six bandit looked at each other. "He can't take all of us! Get him!" The six started to charge Art.

Artermus only smirked and said. "Let's dance." Art in turn charge at them.

Azure, meanwhile, continued firing on the ones rushing to his and Aizen's position, taking down one by shooting her in the leg causing a spray of bloody mist behind her leg and knocking her down for the rest of the fight screaming like a banshee. Azure shot another, but in the shoulder, he didn't go down but it staggered him, Azure shot him again in the stomach knocking him on to his back and winding him, Azure looked behind him and fired on the ones rushing him from his six, Azure aimed for the closes one and shot her hand which had a six shooter revolver in it, and took off three of her five fingers, which caused her to get down on her knees and scream as she held her hand, a few of the bandits stopped to help her but most of them kept charging Azure.

Azure proceeded to open fire again, only to hear a familiar click, which signaled he had emptied his magazine. Azure looked up and saw a bandit getting ready to attack him. Azure quick switched Aqua Rune from it's Atleso rifle form to it's broad sword and met the bandit head on breaking his short sword, Azure instead of swinging down and ending the fight with the bastard, decided to kick him in the gut quite hard making the bandit spew up blood and chucks of what was in his stomach, Azure looked around and noticed they bandits and surrounded him. "Shit." Was all Azure said as he shifted Aqua Rune into long sword form. "Who's next." Azure wasn't getting out of this fight unscathed.

* * *

 _"What's happened..." Aizen thought, **Thud** , Aizen would have looked up if he could but his head felt like it was going to split open. **"...hit..."** Whose getting hit? **"...ho...ex..."** ...What? 'Ho Ex'? Ex-whore maybe? I don't know, my head hurts...  
_

* * *

Aizen's eye's slowly opened and closed, seeing thick blurs rushing past and back his blurred field of view caused his head to spin. _"I feel sick..."_ Aizen felt like vomiting, but he refused the action, it looked like his vision was clearing, but he couldn't tell and it didn't look like it was. Everything suddenly turned blue, very bright and it was little hot to. _"...Fire...Blue... Azure's...Fighting someone..."_ Aizen couldn't think straight, his head felt like it was going to pop. The Blurry figures kept running back and forth in Aizen's vision, making him feel dizzy.

Aizen couldn't do a thing in his current state. The only thing he can do is pass out again.

And that's exactly what he does, against his own will mind you.

* * *

Aria dashed through the trees of the Anima forest, causing leaves to fall here and there when she jumped through the thicket and landed harshly on the branch, making it shake and a few leaves to fall. However has she bounded through the leaves and trees all the bandits she saw, most of them had melee weapons, almost zero sharpshooters. _Almost_ , there were a few, but she just couldn't find any sharpshooters.

Starting to get bored and sick of jumping from branch to branch and getting leaves in her hair, her clothes and into all those little uncomfortable places. _"Like that one leaf that got in my pants. How did it even get in there?"_ Shaking her head to remove the thought as she should be focusing and not dwelling on something stupid. As Aria jumped through the trees, she felt something brush against her right thigh, on the inside though, looking at her leg she saw the faint outline of a leaf. More questions flooded her head such as; how did it get there, is there some kind of hole in my pants and more questions like that. Aria looked ahead and saw a branch ready to knock her unconscious like Aizen. However due her being air born she couldn't change her path, pulling Niriss from her hip, she quickly extends the katana and prepares to cut the branch, rearing her arm back and swinging down removing the branch from her path.

Well that's what would have happened if she didn't get shot in the right side of her abdomen, due to Aria not being aware of the shooter and the danger, her Aura was inactive and unable to protect her. The shot caused blood to fly from her abdomen and leaving Aria in shock from the sudden injury. However, the shot didn't stop her momentum causing her to fly into the branch and having been in the air for to long Aria succumbed to Remnant's gravity and fell down a little and instead of the branch flying into her stomach, it hit her head dazing her and sending her spinning vertically down to the earth.

After being turned into a human shuriken and getting shot, Aria tried to stand from her downed state however the blow to her head made even thinking hard and painful. "Hey! I got one of the hunters!" The voice caused Aria's eyes to snap open and adrenaline to start kicking into her veins, hurriedly pushing herself from the ground into a sitting position wasn't a good idea though, as it caused her head to spin and her step to wobble from the sudden shift of weight, looking forward in her confused state she saw the bandits and one with a rifle, the smoke coming from the barrel was a clear sign that she was the one who had shot her. _"Wait! The bullet wound!"_ Aria's head snapped down and looked at the injury, she couldn't see much as it was covered and hidden by clothing, Aria started feeling around for a exit wound but couldn't find one. _"That's not good... It's going to be fun a night when we set up camp later..."_ Aria looked ahead and saw six bandits- including the one that shot her, strut toward her like they just won a 50 million Ⱡien gamble. Without realizing it, Aria started to stand up and she felt a boiling rage well up within her.

 _"Don't lose control of yourself, it makes you sloppy... Now. Again!"_ Aria heard a distant voice in the back of her head, the cold edge of the voice revealed who it was. It was a memory of a training session- the only training session actually, that she had with Aizen and it went for a day straight with no sleep, no food or water. The only things she got from it was lot of bruises and a desire to kill Aizen for once, but he taught her too not lose self control. Aria refocused on the bandits in front of her as she calmed down, Aria had dropped Niriss when she was shot so it's time to get personal. And feral.

Looking deep into her soul, Aria pulled at a leaver. After pulling the leaver Aria first felt her Aura wash over her, then she felt goose bums all over her skin, next she felt her bones shift and morph. Into something not so human or faunus.

"What the fuck is that!" One of the bandits shouted, a male most likely. "Oh no, no, no, no, no this is so wrong!" Another- male, bandit screamed. "Holy shit! I didn't think a person's body could do that!" A woman screamed out, probably the shooter. More shouting would have been heard if a howl hadn't cut them off, looking toward the direction -some of them looked away- of the female faunus. However when they looked.

They Didn't see a woman with a bullet wound.

But rather, a wolf the size of a full grown man stood in her place; white as the shattered moon above, eyes green as the grass they walked on and as pissed off as an enraged Artermus.

Hackles raised and pearl white teeth on display for the whole of Remnant to see, this display did scare the Branwen Bandits, but one of them spoke up. "Come on! It's one bitch we can take it! Let's go!" After hearing the battle the cry from the girl the other bandits charged with her. Aria lunged forward and pounced the rallier- the one screaming crap and encouraging the others to fight. The unexpected action of the shape shifter caused the bandit to be knocked down easily groaning from the heavy wolf on top of her.

Not stopping there, Aria proceeds to; jump, bite, pounce, knock down and gnaw on the bandits one at a time. Now that Aria is aware of the combat her Aura is active and stopping any further injury from the daggers to rifles the bandits were using on her.

After a good session of mauling the living day lights out the sods, Aria was tired. Not from the fighting- hell no, but rather the bullet wound in her gut was making her weak, even with her Aura fixing her. But Aura can only do so much, for example; fixing bones, bullet wounds and cuts. But last time Aria had checked it couldn't push a bullet out. _"At least, I'm pretty sure it can't."_ Aria thought for a second before shaking her canine head and focused her hearing. Aria noticed that the fighting outside the brush where she was had stopped. _"Seems like Art and Azure drove them off."_ Aria thought before she started to trot back to the others, well she would have started trotting if the bullet hole in her gut didn't still hurt. _"Damn! It feels like someone's burning me with heated iron rod! On the inside!"_ With the adrenaline of the fight wearing off, the pain of the injury had returned full force after the exertion of pouncing her enemies.

Instead of causing more harm than good Aria decided to just slowly walk back.

All while leaving a trail of blood drops, and small thin lines, behind her.

* * *

"Oum, damn my back hurts..." A pained groan could be heard on a dirt road with small bits of blood here and there, but no bodies. "Your back? My everything hurts!" Another one shouted, the two beings of complaining is Art and Azure, who look a little scuffed. With blood, dirt and black burns on their persons.

Mean while, Aizen was still hanging upside down by his leg and was slowly regaining consciousness. Art looks at Aizen and now that the battle's over, Art doesn't need to think of plans on the spot, looking at Aizen's downed- I mean, dangling state Art quickly formulates a plan in his head.

"Alright, Azure I need you the shoot the rope as close to the branch as possible so we can keep the rope, might come in handy later down the road, I'll catch him when he drops." Azure quickly responds by pulling Aqua Ruin from his back, quickly shifting it to the Atleso Rifle and taking aim. "Ready, Art!" Azure shouts at Art from his position, Art walks over to Aizen and gets ready to catch him. "Alright... Fire!" Azure squeezes the trigger and fires off one round at the rope successfully hitting the rope and tearing it a sunder. Art quickly and easily catches the rapidly descending Aizen, after placing him on the ground gently, Art starts to untie the rope from his ankle.

After undoing the bad knot in the rope, Art starts coiling the rope and wrapping it so it would chew up less space in the travel pack, sighing from exhaustion. Art sat down and began to unwind. "Alright, now that's over with, Aria you can carry Aizen for ten minutes and Azure and I will do the same after your ten minutes." Art instructs to Azure and Aria, waiting for a response Art looked up and saw Azure sitting in the grass. "Shit! Aria's not here Azure stay put while I go look for her!" Azure bewildered at the sudden shift in atmosphere, looks around the dirt road and clearing and just notices Aria's missing. "Alright, I'll-" Azure looks back at Art and realizes he's already gone. "Just sit here and wait..." Azure proceeds to sit and get comfy on a convenient stump.

Azure can hear Art's armor bashing against it's self in the distance.

* * *

"Aria! Ariaaaa!" The Wolf Knight screams as he sprints through the thick brush smashing any and all branches in his path to sunder. As Art charges through the forests of anima he quickly picks up the scent of blood. _"Please, for the love of Oum, don't let it be her!"_ Art starts to fallow the scent of blood like a wild dog that had been starved for years, he continues to charge through the thick brush not caring about the small branches that would bend and smack against him.

As Art charged through the thick brush, he heard a small sound which caused him to stop dead in his tracks and still as a cold corpse. The sound, almost unnoticeable if it wasn't for his faunus genes, the sound being a small whimper of a canine creature.

Resuming his relentless charge through the thick brush, the branches now snapping upon contact with his being. The scent of blood had gotten thicker and denser, making it almost hard to breathe.

 **Sha! Clank!**

Art's eyes widened from the familiar sound of a bear trap being triggered, having be with many hunting parties in his village and helping collect the dangerous traps allowed him to recognize sound.

Soon fallowed by the trap is a pained howl of a wolf, looking past the tree line and through the brush. Art saw Aria's canine semblance recognizing it in a heartbeat, seeing this Art forces all the Aura he has left into his legs to reach Aria quicker. "Aria!"

* * *

"Aria!" Aria's canine head snaps up that the sudden shout, looking in the direction of the shout which she had recognized as Art voice.

Aria tries to stand and approach her elder brother, but a spike of pain runs through her being remembering about the bear trap, she promptly falls flat on her side. A residual thud fallowed her large wolf form collapsing on the grass and dirt, Art bursts through the bushes sending leaves, sticks and little creatures flying in her direction.

* * *

Art stops for a moment making sure his eyes don't betray him and that the white wolf is indeed his sister using her shape shift semblance, after a bit of pointless staring and bleeding, Art rushes to the trap that had clamped down on Aria left hind leg.

His memories of working with the hunting parties in Asher Village- their home and birth place, came rushing back to him. quickly scanning the trap for a quick release lever to remove the trap quicker.

After searching the trap twice, Art couldn't find a Q.R.L (Quick Release Lever), deciding that if he took any longer.

Aria might lose her leg.

The thought clung to his mind, like a parasite feeding on his heart. Moving quickly Art wrapped his leather covered hands in the blooded trap and start pulling it apart, a squeak from the trap fighting against him made him look at the trap and noticed it was rusted and cover with dirt an' bugs. "Shit! This traps been here for awhile, it's rusted to the bone!" Art shouted, as he strained to pull the trap open for a good minute, before it snapped wide open with fur and blood coating it's filthy rusted teeth. Art leaned back and promptly sat down and took a deep breathe of Anima air to ease his adrenaline, before standing.

A bright flash of light to his left caught his attention and revealed a stark naked Aria, quickly looking away and striping off his chest armor along with his gloves, before he removed his coat and wrapped her up in a bundle, Art proceeded to lift the small woman off the filthy ground and carry her bridal style, this was a requirement as her semblance- a shape shifting semblance, would shift her anatomy into that of a wolf's anatomy and she would temporarily be unable to use her human form, it was an odd condition as a semblance is apart of you and not meant to take anything in return of it's use, cause negative side-effects. This is one of the many things that have shunned the Azul siblings as all there semblances have negative effects: Art's forcefully disables his Aura, which is way he wears the armor.

Aizen's consumes his Aura at a _very_ rapid pace, only allowing him thirty seconds in the triggered form.

Aria's numbs and fries her motor-skills, rendering her unable to move for one to three hours depending on how long she uses it, she might be out for a good two and half hours.

Azure's requires his Aura much like Aizen, but he's not on a timer like Aizen and he can burn himself if he's not careful.

Shaking his head, Art continues walking back, ignoring his armor lying in the grass he makes note to go get it later after he treats Aria's freshly punctured calve that had, thankfully, stopped bleeding a while ago. With a heft exhausted sigh, Art continues walking back to Azure and Aizen. "This day just keeps getting better and better..." Art continues walking through the brush and taking it slowly as to not agitate Aria's leg.

* * *

Art stepped back into the open road and saw Azure sitting on a stump drawing messy drawings in the dirt. Sitting in the grass and facing the road was Aizen without his coat on showing his gray vest and black compression shirt, and judging from the red lightning arcing across his being.

He's pissed.

Most likely because he was knocked unconscious by the most simple trap in existence.

Sounds like him, short-tempered and pissed off when he makes a bumbling mistake that even a stupid person couldn't make.

Shaking his head at Aizen, Art continues walking to the two hunters, the crunching of the grass and dead leaves makes his presences known to the two siblings. Looking in his direction, they both notice Aria's leg, causing them both to spring into action. Aizen rushes too Aria's travel pack picking it up and going through it for some clean clothes, while Azure rushes too Art's pack where the trauma kit (First Aid Kit) is. "You two are going to have take care of her while I go back and get whatever I can find where she got in a fight. Take care of her you two." Art orders while walking back into the forest in search of Aria's and his gear. "Got it!" Azure shouts in reply to Art orders. "Wilco." Aizen states calmly, unlike his brother.

Both watch for a second as Art walking back into the forest to search for his and Aria's gear.

Aizen and Azure look at each other and nod. Coming to a silent agreement and went to work on Aria's injury.

* * *

Aizen grabs the trench coat and, full of shame, opens the only piece of clothing keeping Aria's well endowed body from the praying eyes of the world. Quickly grabbing the black bra he got from her pack he covered her up and made sure she was comfortable, as Aizen reached for the black panties, when he saw a gut injury. "Shit..." Azure's head spikes up at Aizen's sudden curse and sees his pupils constricted into narrow needles, doing his best to advert his eyes from his sister's exposed body. "What?" Azure speaks to Aizen, but instead of replying, Aizen points to her stomach showing a freshly infected bullet wound. Azure's eyes widen at the sight of the injury.

"That's not going to be pretty to deal with..." Azure winces at the injury and quickly finishes wrapping her and Aizen quickly puts the panties on his sister, all hesitation is gone from both their beings, making it easier for them to work.

Aizen leans Aria onto her side to check her back for a exit wound and lo and behold. "Azure!" Aizen shouts at Azure, who had looked away to inspect the trauma kit and see how their doing on first aid equipment. Azure looks back at Aizen and sees his grim face. "We've got a problem, look." Azure looks at Aria and sees she leaning on her side and can't see a exit wound to the gut injury. "Oh...fuck." Azure looks at the injury in worry and quickly assess the situation. "It's best if we disinfect the entry wound and bandage it. Seems like were going too have to preform surgery later." As Azure said that, Aria's leg kicked out bring it to attention that she hasn't moved or groaned in agony over the injuries. "She used her Semblance." Azure states to himself, although Aizen can't help be make a retort. "State the obvious why don't ya, Captain Obvious." Aizen and Azure have a short staring match, before they both go to work on Aria's gut wound.

As they were working and bandaging the wound after disinfecting it, Azure couldn't help but ask what could have caused the injury. "Hey, Aizen, what do you think could have caused the injury? It look's like a dagger, maybe a bullet wound? But we won't know until later." Aizen could only nod at Azure's observations.

Azure and Aizen look at each other. "Now, we wait." Aizen spoke in a dark foreboding way, making his strong, sharp voice grind against his throat making it sound like gravel being walking upon by steel greaves. "Yep." Azure replies shortly but well enough, they don't need a conversation starting here.

Now, they just sit down with Aria on a blue sleeping bag and with Aizen's coat thrown over her to cover her from the world and it's elements.

Awaiting for Art's return.

* * *

Aizen stands from the chair he had been sitting in for past hour or so, causing it to squeak in protest from the sudden movement. Aizen looked towards the children in their beds. "Old Man, what happens next!?" Ivy shouts at Aizen from her bed, causing Aizen to flinch because of the loudness of the shout, and the pitch didn't help either. "You'll find out tomorrow night..." Aizen speaks in his old, gravely voice.

"But Old Man, it was just getting good." Xantha speaks to him with a leveled voice, causing Aizen to turn his head to her and shakes his head. "I think it's been a long night, you three should go to sleep, come the morrow another tale will fallow..." Aizen walks for the door and grabs the knob, but doesn't turn or open it. Instead he looks over his right shoulder, just like last night. "Rest in peace you three..." With that Aizen steps out of the door way and into the hall, Aizen heads down the hall to his room.

Aizen opens his door with a hefty sigh escaping his lips. "That took longer then it should have..."


	3. Act I: Chapter III

I'm not done writing this story, I'm just very, _very_ slow.

I'm unsure of who owns the cover art; there is a little signature in the bottom left, but it's to blurry for me to read. The best I can get from it is, 'Snider'.

If the Artist complains about the cover art, I will remove/change it and do so willingly, so death threats and sue will be unnecessary.

Any and all references that hint towards a game, anime, manga, book, movie or tv series belongs to it's original owners.

Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY, or any other copyrighted content.

Good day and enjoy this story.

Update: Just fixing a few things here and there.

* * *

Aizen's Cottage, somewhere in the woods outside of Mistral.

* * *

Aizen stared at the cottage ceiling as he lay in his bed at around one in the morning with a wistful mind, thinking about the past rather then living in the present. Aizen started to take in the surrounding of his room like he had done so many time; the walls of his room were gray as was he's ceiling. To his left was a night stand, much like the cottage it's lacquered red-box, but it's painted gray. Upon the nightstand was a small lamp that would illuminate the bed he was on, but would keep the rest of his room pitch black.

Aizen turned his head toward the nightstand and gazed at the three framed photos on it; the first photo was of him and his siblings standing under a veranda, grouped up in a mob of four; Azure was on the left and Aria was on the right, they were both in the front with big stupid grins on their faces, Aizen was behind Aria with her head barely above his waist and Art was behind Azure, the two titan's were both in the back. The photo was old, age forcing it to lose most of it's color and the edges of the photos were flayed.

The second photo showed a beautiful woman, any man or woman would lust for, with unkempt gold hair that reached her nape, with cerulean eyes that screamed mother, along with pale skin showing that she didn't get out into the sun very much. She was wearing a gray dress shirt with a black jacket hanging on her shoulders, covering her legs is a black skirt and black stockings, she was smiling radiantly at the camera. Behind her was a village that was gray and black, the buildings were of the same colors but weren't that of wood and straw, rather the buildings were well made and consisted of black brick and other things giving the village a old school style and appearance.

In this photo was Adrianna Azul: Mother of Artermus, Aizen, Aria and Azure Azul.

Behind her was Ashtin Village or Ashen Village: The 'Village of Ash', the 'Mythical Ash City', the 'Unknown Ashen Kingdom', the 'Black Fields' and more pointless titles and names.

 _"Two decades ago, Ashtin Village didn't even exist, to the whole world at least...it was just a myth...some crazy person's delusion... The News really flipped when Ashtin got put on the map."_ Aizen thought as he looked at the city like village behind his mother that thrived at the foot of a active volcano.

Because of the people of Ashtin Village living, literally, under black, toxic clouds since they were babies, gave anyone who was born there lungs that can process and filter the deadly fumes from the volcano into pure oxygen, allowing them to breathe normally in Aizen's deadly home. _"Despite that, I still love the place. I miss the feeling of the ash between my toes... Good, peaceful times..."_ Aizen dimly thought as he stared at the photo.

One little detail of the photo that most would miss would be the pale arm over Adriana's shoulder, when fallowing the arm you would find nothing but a torn edge. To put it simply: The photo had been torn in half, cutting off whoever was on the right side of the photo, Adrianna's left.

Moving onto the third photo. In the photo was of another woman and Aizen himself: The woman had gray neck length hair and blue eyes with half framed, squarish, glasses. Her face smooth and sharp, flat and strong around the cheeks, she was wearing a white dress shirt and reddish-brown pants along with black jogging shoes. Smiling happily at the camera while holding Aizen's right arm. She was tall, well, not too tall just around six foot one.

In this photo Aizen was seventeen and the woman was eighteen.

This woman's name is Akia Argent, she was- and still is Aizen's childhood friend in Ashtin/Ashen village. _"We were as thick as thieves...got in to a lot of trouble with_ _her..."_ She was around seventeen when Aizen had last seen her in Ashtin, when Aizen was sixteen. The age of independence in Ashtin village was seventeen. Akia had been getting money together for two years straight hoping to move to Vale and live there, she racked up close to fifty thousand Ⱡien, she only needed twenty thousand for herself but she had found out, via Adriana, that Aizen was going to become a Huntsman and she took him with her to Vale.

A year later Aizen took the entrance exam to get into Beacon, and pasted with flying covers.

Akia came dashing into the door way with a open envelope and letter in her hand she tackled Aizen, while he was pacing in the living room of their apartment, Aizen didn't know what was going on until Akia had dragged Aizen onto the couch and told him to read it Aizen stood up as he reread the letter three times, before in a burst of emotions Aizen grabbed Akia and lifted her into a bone crushing hug. Akia, in the heat of the moment, kissed Aizen.

Contrary to stereotypical beliefs, Aizen , nor Akia, were a stuttering, blushing mess. They handled it just find

 _"I remember that day as if it were yesterday, I even remember what she said after she kissed me,"_ A clear, feminine voice rang through Aizen's head, _"I'm taking you out tomorrow and you don't get a say in the matter!"_ Akia's voice slowly echoed through out Aizen's mind and slowly faded away, _"was exactly what she shouted at me... She took me to a little_ _ _Café the day after, no more than four people were there not including us... She didn't stop staring at me through the whole date...not that I didn't mind... She has beautiful eyes_...prettier than mine at least" _Aizen stared at the photo with a tired face that spoke of questions. _"I wonder what she's been up too...been a couple of weeks since I last saw her... Should plan a get-together sometime..."_ Aizen stared at the photo for a little longer, before he looked back at the ceiling and closed his eyes, and laid there forcing himself to sleep.

And sleep he did, but instead of the dreamless nights he had every night.

Aizen dreamed of the past.

* * *

Memories/The Past. Woods a few days walk from Mistral.

* * *

Aria did her best not too scream her lungs out as Azure, carefully and skillfully, cut open the bullet wound in her stomach. If Azure isn't careful, he could accidentally eviscerate her with his razor sharp scalpel if Art and Aizen weren't holding her down. "Hold still Aria! Do you want too disembowel yourself?!" Aizen shouted, while he and Art held her down as Azure worked.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Azure apologized profusely as he watched Aria's flesh separate from the scalpels sharp edge, it was like watching a banana's skin being cut open...a very, fleshy and red banana being cut open. After Azure was finished reopening the injuring, Azure reached for a pair of tweezers. Taking hold of the tweezers, Azure checked if they were clean and soon starting digging into Aria's open flesh trying to find the bullet and get it out, before it causes internal infection.

The sudden entry of the cold tweezers in her hot, fleshy interior caused a surge of pain to course through Aria, Aria looked like she was going to break her own teeth with how hard she was clenching her jaw. Aria thrashed _even_ harder from the sudden intense pain, Aria ending up throwing Aizen off her left Arm, Aizen yelped at the sudden force. Aizen hit the ground hard and grunted in pain.

Her arms are, by no means, thin. The opposite actually, they had muscle and were quite beefy, not to thick and not to thin: Just right.

"Shit! Aizen get your ass back over here and help me hold her down!" Art shouted at the Trigger Wielder. Aizen quickly moved back to Aria's arm but got scratched from her sharp nails, leaving five slices across his trench coat.

"Alright, that's it!" Aizen activated his semblance startling Art, but not Azure, as he was to focused and Aria was into much pain to care. Aizen latched onto Aria's left arm with a vice grip. "Didn't really see myself having to use this for this!" Aizen shouted in a distorted voice and he held onto Aria's arm. "Double time Azure! I can't hold this for very long!" Aizen shouted at Azure, said blue haired half-faunus just told Aizen to shut up.

After a bit more digging, Azure could see the bullet. "Found it!" Azure started reaching for the bullet and in doing so, Aria started thrashing more, Art was doing fine as he could manipulate his Aura fairly well and was using the balk of his heavy weight to hold Aria's arm. However, Aizen was having some trouble since his Sol Trigger was starting to wear off, this was evident as he's normal form started to faze in and out.

"I've got a hold of it!" Azure shouted at the other two and started to pull the bullet out of Aria's abdomen, the size of the bullet cause more pain in Aria and she started letting out quiet, but was at her limit in terms of strength. Trying to fight of a man that was almost as heavy as a car and get out of the grip of a man with the strength of a ten Ursa, but that was changing as Aizen was fazing more and more out of his trigger form.

Aizen was soon rapidly flashing out of his trigger form and back into his original form. "God damn it, Woman! Stop thrashing around!" Aizen shouted as he was starting to get jumped around on the ground as

"Got it!" Azure exclaimed happily as he was sweating bullets from the operation, after sitting down for a bit Azure went to work on stitching and cleaning the freshly cut and bleeding wound. Soon after stitching the injury, he started bandaging it.

While Azure was working some more, Art noticed Aria's sudden silence and looked towards her, upon looking at Aria's face, Art saw that she had past out. "Aria past out from the pain." Art spoke to himself as he let go of her right arm, before looking at Aizen who was still holding Aria's left arm and had turned back to his normal form. "Aizen," Aizen looked at Art, "You can let go now." Art spoke, as Aizen looked at Aria, than he calmly let go of her arm, but before he could retract his arm, Aria's hand grabbed his arm in a vice like grip.

Meanwhile, Art was catching a breather and hadn't noticed this action, until he heard Aizen grunt in pain. Art looked over to Aizen and saw him clinching his jaw, the muscles in his face bulging, Art looked at Aria and saw her holding Aizen's forearm with a iron grip. "Okay...that's starting to hurt now." Aizen spoke through clenched teeth. Aizen would use his aura to defend himself from Aria's iron grip, but his semblance drained his aura, leaving him defenseless against Aria's iron grip.

Artermus calmly walked over and pried Aria's fingers off of his hand, instead of jumping away, Aizen stood up and rubbed is hand too try and ease the pain a little. "Well, that's going to take a bit heal." Aizen spoke as he rubbed his aching arm trying to levitate the ache, Aizen looked toward Aria concerned for his younger sister's well being. Although unconscious from intense pain, her breathing was steady.

Aizen looked over to the campsite where they were going to rest for the evening, Aizen walked over and reached for Artermus's traveling pack and pulled out Aria's green sleeping bag. Aizen laid the green sleeping bag on the ground and watched as Artermus lifted Aria off the ground and moved her on the sleeping bag, "Alright, now that that's over and done. We should get some sleep, although one of us has to take watch." Art spoke to his two brothers as they approached him.

Azure had taken his coat off, whereas Aizen still had his coat on- Azure's being the long, aqua blue trench-coat and Aizen's being the gray trench-coat - that now had five jagged slashes from Aria's sharp nails .

Before Art or Azure could say anything, Aizen spoke up. "I'll take watch. I... Haven't be very helpful these past eight-or-so hours..." Aizen looked at the ground bashfully, a scowl deeply etched into his face. Art and Azure looked at each other before Azure shrugged and walked off to his medical tools, which still needed cleaning.

Art turned back to the silver-haired man and nodded. "Alright, night duty's all yours, Aizen." Aizen nodded at Art and walked off to a tree and jumped up on to a thick branch that could support his weight. As he was up there something clicked in his head.

Turning carefully on the thick tree branch, so as to not lose his balance, he looked toward Art who was walking to his sleeping bag and was taking off most of his clothes, his armor included. "Hey, Art," Aizen called to Art, making Art look at him, "do you think I should invest in some lightweight armor that I can were under my coat and vest?" Aizen asked as Art looked at him, while unbuckling the gold colored shin armor for his boots.

"That's a good idea Aizen, considering your semblance chews through your aura like Aria and her meat." Art placed his shin-guards to the side and got to work with his boots.

"It's what I did when I got my semblance and learned it projects my Aura and leaves me defenseless, so to fix that, I forged my armor, but since we're on the road to home, we'll have to buy some armor." Art spoke his opinion and reasoning behind agreeing to Aizen's idea of getting armor. Aizen nodded in thanks, but Art wasn't finished.

"However," Aizen looked back to Art as he unzipped his left boot, "If you're after L.A.P.A.- Light-Acrobatic-Protective-Armor -specifically, than we'll have to make a stop at Mistral and," Art pulled his left boot off, "find an Armorer in the kingdom, and that's if they have it." Art got to work on his left boot. " L.A.P.A. type armor is most common in Vacuo; as the armor is light and won't weigh down travelers trudging through the sand because of it's light weight." Art spoke as he removed his boots and got started on his gauntlets.

Aizen nodded at the information that his brother had given him with a frown deeply set in his face. "Damn, it's to low a chance for Mistral to have any of the armor and if there is one, it will diffidently be expensive." Aizen thought out loud as he stroked his chin, thinking of how he's going to get the armor, he _needs_ it. He hardly ever uses his semblance, but if he is going to use it more he'd need more protection then just some thin leather and his soul.

It's... It's just not healthy.

* * *

Aizen was sitting down against the trunk of the tree, his left leg dangling and swinging slightly, his right was resting on the branch. Aizen had been sitting here for a few hours, Art and Azure were asleep and Aria has not woken since the removal of the bullet and was now sleeping comfortably in her bag.

However, just before Azure had gone to sleep, Aizen asked if he could have the bullet, Azure gave the bullet to him and Aizen was examining the bullet with a flashlight illuminating it so he can see in the dark. He may have Faunus genes from his great grand parents, but all he got was a better scene of smell and better hearing.

But no night vision, not that night vision would do a lot of good right now since as the moon is in it's first quarter state, reflecting near next to no light.

Pushing that to the back of his mind, he refocused on the bullet and he knew exactly what this bullet was, after cleaning the blood off it and the burn marks off after being fired.

On the back of the bullet head was a tag and number. The tag was the bullet's caliber, the reason why that's there is so if someone was murdered with a firearm that used this caliber was so they could run a check list of people that own a gun that uses said caliber. And the caliber for this bullet has set Aizen on edge.

It's a 303. Vritish round, but not just a regular 303 round; it's an A.A.P. round, pronounced 'App', an Active Aura Piercing round. Designed _just_ for killing hunters and anyone with Aura. How did Aizen know this? Well, it was how he got his Huntsman license suspended; Aizen did an Assassination contract that required a Hunter, specificity one that knows how to use a sniper rife. This contract just happened to be his last.

Assassination contracts aren't illegal, no, it's just unusual for _any_ Hunter to take them. And a Huntress just happened to be in the area that wasn't to happy with what he had done and she confronted him when he got paid for the job. And when she stopped Aizen when he left the pub... Let's just say a sickle flying at your head is a bad way to start anything.

She tried to kill Aizen, saying that it was "Justice for the innocent man he killed". A load of bullshit is what it is, Aizen stalked the guy for five hours, and Aizen's pretty sure two woman murdered and one man raped and killed isn't innocent. Aizen couldn't help but think of that day as he stared at the bullet.

* * *

Aizen stepped out of the Tacion Bar with his wallet full of Lien and a satisfied feeling of killing some scum that had it coming. As Aizen walked down from the outdoor sitting area of the Bar and on to the dirt road, he heard a something fly at him from across the road. Reacting quickly, Aizen quickly, and professionally, stepped out of the flying projectile's way.

The sound of something being lodged into wood was enough for him to pull Merciless from his waist, looking forward Aizen saw a woman; she had plate armor all over her right arm and leg, her left side was armored with plate armor as well but only in bits and pieces, half a chain mail skirt hung from her leather belt but instead of pants she had a long skirt on with a long slit that went up to the belt exposing her armored leg. She had long black hair and brown eyes.

Her expression was one of pure rage focused on him and him alone. "Do I even want to know." Aizen spoke as he stared at her she yanked her right arm back and reviled the weapon that almost had Aizen's head, it was a sickle connected to a scythe. Aizen couldn't help but think. _"Scythes seem to be pretty popular these days."_ Aizen thought as he looked at her with his focused gaze not betraying his emotions.

"It's justice for the innocent man you murdered, you bastard!" She shouted at him form across the street, Aizen just stared at her, before reaching up to the bridge of his nose and rubbing it with his right hand's index and thumb. "I can explain tha-" Aizen started, but she wasn't having any of it.

"Shut up, Asshole! You can explain it better in your grave!" She shouted at Aizen before charging at him, instead of running right at him, she jumped and readied her scythe. Aizen looked at her eye and saw that she was looking at his neck, she was going to kill him.

Well, try and kill him. Aizen stood at the ready and just when she was about to hit him, Aizen swung Merciless in a reverse grip, while still in it's sheath, at the scythe's blade knocking it back and throwing her off balance and sending her into the dirt.

Kicking off the ground she spun then looked Aizen in the eye with fury written on her face. "You dare mock me?! Fight me you coward!" She spoke as she charged at Aizen again only this time she threw the sickle and lunged at Aizen, with quick movement Aizen grabbed the sickle with his right hand and threw Merciless into the air and grabbed her scythe with his left and pulled her into him and kneed her in her abdomen, successfully winding her and making her Aura fluctuate.

Taking advantage of how poor a fighter she is in CQC, Aizen dropped the sickle and let go of her right arm, side-stepped with a spin and preformed a simple roundhouse kick to her lower back with his right leg.

Well simple was a little bit of an understatement. Considering that there's a crimson, electric glow coming from his leg

Aizen heard an explosion of force as he kicked her lower back with an Aura reinforced kick and broke her Aura, which was amber-brown, similar to her eyes. Aizen stepped back and grabbed Merciless with his left hand just as it got within reach of his grasp. Even though her Aura was broken, Aizen watched as she stood back up and turned to him with a pained, but furious expression. "I'm going to kill you!" She shouted as she readied to charge Aizen.

Only for Aizen to zip by her at frighting speeds, confused, she turned to looked at Aizen, only for her to get the feeling that her head was sliding off her neck. "Wha-" Before she could finish her eyes opened wide as her head fell to the dirt with a hefty thud, her body still standing.

Aizen stood from his crouched position, and with a practiced flick of his wrist threw off any blood that got on Merciless' crimson, electric blade. Soon slowly sliding his sword into it's home.

And it was at this moment people walked out to see what had happened, only to see a headless body and a man dressed in gray trench-coat.

Let's just say Aizen didn't stand a chance in court, he may have acted in self defense, but it didn't justify killing the Huntress.

So, as punishment Aizen's Huntsman license was suspended, at the cost of not going to a maximum security prison in Atlas.

* * *

 _"It didn't stop Ozpin for trying to recruit me for his stupid game of 'Gods and Demons'. I didn't want any part of it anyway. I found a nice place to build a home away from everything."_ Aizen thought as he stared at the bullet, his brows furrowed as he thought of that event. _"The bloody News most likely exaggerated it, saying it was a 'daring escape' and a 'massacre', I hate News Reporters. All that really happened was I whacked Ozpin in the head, and then left shortly after with my siblings in tow."_

Aizen shook his head to try and clear those thoughts, and refocused on the bullet. As he stared at the bullet he ran a full check list of people that would know where they were going or would be, so far he had a few.

Raven's 'Tribe', _"But what reason would she have to attack us."_

The next one he thought of was Ironwood, _"He would most certainly want us, mostly me, in jail, but he wouldn't have used rounds to kill hunters. Much less pay a 'Tribe' of bandits to do it for him."_

The last one he could think of, was Salem, _"From what Ozpin told us, Salem has some 'choice' minions to do most of her dirty work. But which of them was it?"_ Aizen thought as he stared at the bullet, definitely someone that could make Raven do something like this, but whom he thought.

Aizen would have pondered it further if it wasn't for the sound of a stick being stepped on. The sound caused Aizen to quickly stuff the bullet head into his coat pocket and stand on the branch he was on with Merciless' sheath in his left and his right on the hilt.

Aizen stared at general direction of the sound, watching for anything; a scope to catch the moonlight, the faint glow of faunus eyes, a shimmer of hair or skin against the moonlight, anything just to ease his nerves.

A rabbit jumped out of the bush... _"Are you fucking kidding me..."_ Aizen thought as he stared at the brown and gray rabbit that was sniffing around for anything unusual.

Aizen was considering pouncing the damn thing for making him react the way he did, but something stopped him.

The rabbit was small, to small to break a stick that loud.

If Aizen's nerves were burning with alarm, they were outright screaming now. There's danger in the forest and Aizen couldn't see it.

Making, what he considered, a bad decision. Aizen turned away from the tree line to look towards the camp, where his siblings were sound asleep.

The glint of steel above Art was all he needed to pounce from his position in the tree.

Pumping Aura into his legs, Aizen lunged from the tree Merciless unsheathed in it's crimson, electric glow, ready to shish kabob the would be murderer.

Hearing the branch break from Aizen's jump made the assassin's head snap up, they saw a gray and red blur coming straight for them.

They didn't have a chance, Aizen's katana pierced the assailant's left shoulder, pining them to the ground with a wet slicing noise, Merciless pierced the ground and firmly and solidly, insuring they wouldn't be able to move.

Aizen quickly dropped Merciless' sheath and reached for their face, or to be exact, their mouth to silence them, or at least muffle the screams that came out anyway. Didn't wake the other three up, so that good. "Be quiet and I'll let you live, try anything and this katana will be wrenched from her shoulder and replaced into your head." Aizen could feel them trembling underneath him, from either the pain or his threat. "That is if you answer my questions." Aizen could feel the person shakily nod.

Now that Aizen was closer he could see what the person was wearing. They were wearing a green camo coat that cover mostly everything they were wearing, on the person's legs were some loose cargo pants and leather combat boots. A hood was pulled up and over their head, concealing their identity in the poor lighting.

Aizen let go of Merciless and pulled their hood back, due to the poor lighting and Aizen's almost nonexistent night-vision, he could barely make out their face, after a few seconds of staring Aizen final made out the twit's face.

Said twit is a woman; a shaped and smooth face with hazel eyes stared into his crimson orbs. Her hair was short, neck length and was a dark lime green. Her skin was pale-white, not the smooth, luscious pale-white, but a deathly pale-white.

Aizen stared at her face for a little, memorizing it in case he needed to remember her face for later. "Name." Aizen spoke, leaving no room for objection.

With a stuttering, irritating high-pitched voice she said. "J-Jade Vermillion-" She was cut of by a wince from shifting against the katana lodged through her shoulder.

"Alright, Jade. Who-" Aizen was cut off by the sound of Art rolling in his dull-gold sleeping bag, looking back at Jade, Aizen reached for Merciless with his left hand, Jade's eyes looked at him frantically as she shook her head side-to-side, silently begging him not to do what he was about to do.

Aizen grabbed Merciless' hilt with his left and covered her mouth with his right, Aizen made shushing noises as his grip on the hilt of his katana tightened in preparation for him to pull it out.

Aizen decided to slowly pull it out instead of reefing it out like he originally intended.

Aizen slowly started pulling the katana from Jade's shoulder and the dirt underneath, Aizen stared into Jade's eyes, which had started tearing up from the pain of the crimson blade sliding from her being, with a blank stare.

From Jade's perspective, Aizen's crimson eyes seem to have a eerie glow, the eerie glow seem to cause more pain than the blade that was the same color of both his eyes and her blood.

Aizen could tell Jade was in immense pain from his actions, but did he care? No. Not at all, she practically asked for this when she decided to try and kill his older brother in his sleep.

Half way, a little further and the pain would stop. Just a little more. Jade could feel the tip of Merciless and all of it's details, the little scratches, the grim- all of it! She could feel everything of the blade that could have found a new home in her head.

Merciless came free from Jade's shoulder, blood dripped from the tip of the crimson katana and onto her coat and clothing that covered her left breast, dying the green, forest camo a slight red. Aizen smoothly place Merciless on to the ground next to him, within reach and still covered in blood.

She wanted to scream from the pain, but she knew. She knew that if she so much as made a pep, the gray clothed ex-Hunter would kill her.

"Alright," Aizen spoke, as he continued staring Jade in the face as she had closed her eyes. "Let's move away, but before we do that. Tell me, are their any others." Aizen questioned as he pulled his hand away from her mouth, Jade opened her hazel eyes and looked him in the eye.

"N-no, it's j-just me." Jade stuttered out to Aizen while looking him in the eye, fear was coursing through her veins.

Aizen stared at her eyes, waiting for them to dilate, they didn't. Looking away from her eyes and to her right arm's wrist, Aizen grabbed her arm with his left and pushed the sleeve back with his right, he placed his fingers over her veins, expecting it to be quick from the events that had just happened in the span of six minutes. It was, a fast beat but not to fast. She hasn't lost a lot of blood, she's just jacked up on adrenaline.

But it wasn't fast enough for Aizen to deem her words as lies. Aizen grabbed let go of her arm with both hands, letting the sleeve slide down her arm.

Grabbing Merciless, Aizen wiped the blood of the blade on his gray coat, grabbing the sheath he quickly sheathed the crimson blade and latched it to his belt.

Aizen grabbed her waist with both hands, and picked her up like a sack of potatoes and swung her over his right shoulder, making her wince from her left shoulder being jostled with it's brand new hole that was steadily leaking blood at a leisure rate, it wasn't to serious, her aura should fix it soon enough.

Jade felt humiliated being carried like a sack of potatoes, but couldn't help but blush as Aizen held her by her butt for a better grip.

Aizen carried Jade quite a ways away from the camp, Aizen could feel the blood from her fresh wound hitting his coat and soaking in. Turning that bit of the coat wine red, he didn't care he's been covered in blood plenty of times. One of his older coats when he was thrown into a pond full of fresh, bleeding bodies, turned into a wine red he liked the color but he couldn't get the smell out. It was his favorite coat too.

After walking with the injured woman on his should for a minute, Aizen had entered the tree line and promptly dropped her on the ground making her yelp in pain. Aizen waited for her to sit up and look him in the eyes, which she did. "Now," Aizen's tone made Jade flinch. "Who sent you and how did they find us." Aizen questioned, he wanted- no, he _needed_ to know, for the safety of his siblings, if he can't figure out how, then they would never be able to sleep at night.

Jade swallowed a lump in her throat. "A woman that called herself the 'Queen', she gave me your predicted location and paid me to kill at least one of you. That's all I know..." Jade spoke that last bit a little dejected, but she had stopped stuttering by this point, giving Aizen a clear sentence.

Aizen nodded his head at what she had told him. "Alright, you can leave now." Aizen turned around and starting walking back to camp.

Jade stared wide eyed at Aizen as he walked away. "Wait!" Aizen stopped and turned to her. "You're going to let me live? Just like that?" Jade questioned as she watched Aizen turn around and, once again, stare at her.

"Yes, just like that." Aizen stated flatly as he looked at Jade. "There's no point in killing you. This 'Queen' will kill you herself, I'd just be doing her work for her." Aizen, once again, stated flatly, Jade's eyes widen at this revelation. Her contractor will kill her.

Realization dawned on Jade as Aizen's cruel truth sunk in, Jade looked up as Aizen started speaking again. "I'd suggest hiding, but it's obvious that this 'Queen' lady, can find just about anyone. You're on your own." Aizen turned back toward the camp and started walking again.

Jade grabbed her face and horror, sure she has killed a lot of people, but she wasn't ready to die. Just as Aizen was about to leave her line of sight she spoke up again. "Is there anything I can do...?" Aizen, for the second time, stopped and turned around to look at her.

"Run. Hide. Kill. Bribe. Do _whatever_ it takes." Was all he said before he started walking again, leaving Jade to mule over her options, which wasn't a lot.

Jade was scare, that much was obvious given how she has been acting.

 _"Shouldn't have taken the job. She wouldn't be in this mess then."_ Aizen mewled in his thoughts as the camp came into sight, looking around he noticed that it was a little brighter. _"Suns rising, better get at least a little bit of sleep."_ Aizen walked toward the tree he had been in before Jade showed up, sitting down against the trunk, Aizen leaned into it, oddly comfortable against the hard wood.

His eyelids suddenly felt very heavy, blinking caused his eyelids to drag against his eyes, showing tired he was. "Azure will wake up soon, kids always been an early bird..." Everything faded to black as Aizen finished his sentence.

* * *

The Present: Aizen's cottage, somewhere in the woods outside of Mistral.

* * *

Aizen woke up with heavy eyelids, drowsy and conscious, his bed was just the right temperature, not to warm or to cold, _just_ right. He didn't want to get up, he was that comfortable, Aizen decided he was going to just go back to sleep-

 _Knock knock_ _knock!_

Aizen's eyes snapped open, focused and fully conscious, a sudden knocking on his front door, he better answer it. Throwing his dark, wine-red dunner off of him Aizen swung his legs off of his bed and stood, he would have had a gray or black dunner, but he couldn't find one large enough for his height. Although he was glad that it was a color he liked.

Aizen quickly stripped from his loose gray pants and quickly threw on some black slacks and a gray button up, Aizen pulled some black knee-high socks and pulled on his knee-high black leather boots from yesterday. As Aizen walked to his bedroom door he buttoned up his shirt and half tucked it into his pants.

He would have made himself more presentable, but whoever was knocking couldn't, and wouldn't, wait. Opening his bedroom door, Aizen took advantage of his long legs and made great strides to the staircase and skipped one step when going down. The knocking on the front door, which was in sight, became more furious. As Aizen walked to the door he could see the door shaking as his front was on the receiving end of the banging.

Aizen unlocked the door and opened it, the door's assaulter was his sister, Aria. Just like Aizen, her hair had grayed but not as bad as his had, she had also cut it and it was now shoulder length, her face a small unnoticeable wrinkles. There was a small scar above her left eyebrow and one on her right cheek.

"Jeez, Aizen, I thought I was going to have to break down the door." Aria said with a light, motherly smile. Aizen himself, smiled a small unnoticeable at his sister.

"Sorry, I woke up not to long ago." Aizen spoke, despite his words, he didn't sound very tired. And Aria pointed that out.

"But, you don't sound very tired." Aizen just shook his head and stepped to the side to let Aria walk into his cottage, which she did. While Aria walked in, Aizen closed the door behind her.

As Aria walked in she looked around, there wore more paintings on the walls than when she was last here. "Someones been to the gallery." Aizen looked toward Aria upon hearing her quip.

Aizen looked toward the wall and remembered that he had indeed gone to the Art Gallery in Mistral a couple weeks ago to decorate his walls. Empty space got under his skin for some reason. "Indeed, the empty space on the walls were getting to me... I had to fill in the space." Aizen spoke in his usual tired manner, he just sounded that way no matter how much sleep he got.

Aizen and Aria gazed at the wall, more precisely, the framed art that rested on the wall.

The first they both looked at was a piece scenic decorative art; depicting a teenage girl in a wine-red dress staring at a wide open prairie as the sunsets in the foreground.

The second one is an abstract piece art; it depicts a gray-trunk tree with light, plasma blue leaves in the middle of a perfectly still, blue ocean reflecting the skies clouds and the tree like a mirror. Aria's head turned towards Aizen. "I like this one," Aria spoke aloof and peaceful. "It looks so peaceful..." That is exactly what Aizen thought of the image. Aizen couldn't think of any words, so he just nodded.

The third one sent a shiver down Aizen's spine, despite having walked and looked at it everyday. Something about it right now made his spine tingle. Aizen wasn't sure what type of art it was; it depicts an individual of unknown identity in black, white and red standing in front of a sea of black and red, a large sword, possibly a claymore, was held in their left hand.

The surrounding area of the art was the home of the Grimm; the Grimm Lands. As Aizen stared at the background he noticed the moon in the painting was whole and not shattered, and Salem's castle was not insight. "Wow," Aria suddenly spoke up, making Aizen look away from the painting and toward her. "This is a nice one, but something about it feel odd." Aria stated while gazing at the image.

Aizen looked toward it, the tingling sensation had stopped. "Well, no matter," Aizen spoke up demising the image's oddity that they both felt. "So, what brings you out here." Aizen said, breaking Aria gaze from the painting and toward him.

"Oh yeah, I came to check up on the kids!" Aria stated happily, now if only her energy rubbed off on Aizen.

Aizen felt a sudden pain in his chest at the realization. "Dear sister, do you think I'm incapable of taking care of my nephew and nieces?" Aizen spoke accusingly, sibling banter, oh how he missed it.

Aria sweat dropped at her older brother. "What, no! I think your able to, I just wanted to see my little Ivy!" Aizen didn't by it. "And my nephew and niece..." Aizen just gave her a well practiced deadpan. "Okay! I came here to check up on them, since you're, ya' know, not very good at anything domestic..." Aria said, looking at the ground.

Aizen didn't mind, it was true after all. He wasn't very good in that department. "It's alright, Bun," The use of her nickname, made Aria looked up at Aizen's face. "It's true, I'm not very good at it, but I've been doing my best to take care of them while their here." Aizen stated while looking down at Aria, he refused to crouch down, as to him, that was worse then looking down at her.

Aria and Aizen walked out away and from the foyer, and into the living room, where Aria took a sit on the nice leather couch. Aizen didn't take a sit, and decided to be a gracious host and get her a beverage

"Now," Aizen started. "What would you like to drink, Aria." Aizen spoke while looking at his sister, with a small, mirthful smile on his aged face.

Aria smiled in return. "Tea please, with two sugar cubes, please, Aizen." Aria watched as Aizen walked into the kitchen and out of her sight.

Aria leaned back into the comfy leather couch, the sound of foot steps coming from upstairs caught her attention. It was also at this moment that Aizen walked back out of the kitchen, Aizen spoke up with an exhausted sigh. "And their up... No matter, they can handle this morning without me. I want to spend time with my sister." Aizen stated as he sat down on Aria left and place their tea on the coffee table.

Aizen and Aria hadn't seen each other for awhile, they needed to do some much needed catching up.


End file.
